


Switching Channels

by fringedweller



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, F/M, Humour, Movie Adaptation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-22
Updated: 2010-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-23 16:32:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringedweller/pseuds/fringedweller





	1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 2660 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

By anybody’s reckoning in the industry, Christy Chapel was at the top of her field in broadcast journalism.

_Christy huddled out of the wind with her camera and sound crew in the shelter of the news shuttle, waiting for the shot that would serve as a perfect backing to her piece to camera. God, it was cold today._

_“He’s coming,” warned her sound guy._

_Throwing her coffee hastily aside, Christy grabbed the universal translator that would automatically ensure that wherever Starfleet Network News broadcast her piece, the local population would understand it. As a florid, overweight man appeared from the steps of the government building behind her, Christy hastily ran a hand through her blonde hair before starting her segment._

_“Federation Council Attorney Roy Nero today announced that he would be challenging Governor Harry Mudd in the upcoming High Council primary elections. It’s a matter of public record that these two men have not agreed on any issue, so this election promises to be a good, old-fashioned San Francisco dogfight.”_

_Nero, surrounded by members of the Federation’s media corps, paused in his proud strut across the courtyard and waved a jubilant fist at the camera. Christy was sure that his “Yeah!” was supposed to sound encouraging, but instead it came out as a sneer. She shivered, glad that that the camera was looking away from her. God that man had a cruel face._

She’d worked her way up from the bottom, interning as a general gofer at the age of sixteen at the local news studio, studying journalism at college, writing for the university’s newspaper, then switching to fronting the daily news bulletins broadcast all over campus. She’d attracted the attention of her first employer when she scooped journalists twice her age on a story about the contraband smuggling of Romulan Ale after sneaking onto a supply ship and videoing evidence of the illegal drink being sold to a very well known member of the Federation High Council. She wasn’t afraid to take risks to get the best story; not in college, and not now.

_The camera caught Christy in conference with one of the senior law enforcement officers, before heading back towards her viewers. Behind her rose a massive housing block, one of the older and least impressive examples of San Francisco’s public housing system. It was due to be demolished and a modern, attractive block rebuilt for the inhabitants, but there was one lone homeowner that was determined not to move. Dubbed “The Southside Sniper” by the media, he was showing his disapproval by taking potshots with a phaser rifle from his balcony._

_“The police have just informed me that they have caught the infamous Southside Sniper,” Christy began, just before a shout came from above and a phaser blast took out the windows of the police car that Christy was standing next to. She, the police officers and the camera crew hurled themselves to the ground as more blasts came flying down from above._

_Christy’s head raised carefully into shot. “We’ll keep you informed,” she managed, before throwing herself down on the floor again._

Of course, not every story was life-changing, deal-breaking or award-winning, although by her early thirties, Christy had a mantelpiece crammed full of shiny trophies for some of her investigative work. Some stories were more... humanoid-interest pieces. She didn’t really care for them, but the thought of McCoy assigning them to the bubbly new journalist Gaila was more than she could stand. Sometimes though, she thought her ex-husband got off on giving her the most uncomfortable assignments possible.

_The rain was pouring down now, so much so that the supporters that had lined the roads back when the marathon started had all but given up and gone back home. Christy desperately wished she could do the same, but kept a fixed grin on her face as she spotted her crew huddling under a tree twenty metres ahead of her. They jogged alongside her as she delivered her piece to camera, trying not to wheeze too badly._

_“It may look like rain to the rest of you, but on Lakeshore Drive, it’s sunshine all the way!” Christy lied as a passing motorcyclist drove past and showered her already drenched body in more water._

_She spluttered, but kept on jogging determinedly. Gaila would have quit fifty metres in._

_“That’s it San Francisco!” she called joyously. “Hit me! Beat me! I love it!”_

_The camera tracked her ploughing onwards, and the sound man accidentally recorded the camera operator’s hysterical laughter, although they got rid of that in the edit._

Christy stayed just long enough with her first employer, one of the smaller news groups, to get spotted by one of the big ones, Starfleet News Network. She had turned up in their headquarters in San Francisco for her interview and screen tests, expecting to find a panel of network suits to impress. Instead, she was ushered into what had to be the world’s messiest office only to be confronted with one of the finest examples of male backsides Earth had to offer thrust in the air towards the door. Whoever owned it was desperately searching for something in a heap of pizza boxes, script PADDs and b-roll tape that looked like it had been waiting to be edited since the end of the Third World War.

“Riley!” an irate voice from near the floor yelled. “Riley, where the hell did you put the tape of that Church woman? It’s lost itself. Riley!”

It appeared that the fine backside had a fine Georgia accent to match.

“It’s Chapel,” she said coolly. “Not Church. And Mr Riley went to kick a satellite.”

A shock of dark hair and an expressive pair of eyebrows came up over the top of the desk, before the man in possession of them straightened up and belatedly smoothed down his rumpled shirt. The tie was long gone, she noticed, and it looked like he had slept in the rest of his clothes.

“Chapel,” he repeated, kicking some of the larger pizza boxes under his desk in an attempt to bring order to chaos. Behind him banks of screens showed Starfleet reporters from all over the galaxy hunkered down in the middle of war zones, interviewing uncomfortable looking heads of state with probing questions and looking impossibly glamorous behind news desks.

“Christine Chapel,” she said, moving forward to extend her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr...”

She hesitated. She hadn’t actually been given the name of this man; the Irish gofer that had escorted her past the steely gaze of the small security guard at the front desk had been called away to kick satellite eleven, whatever the hell that meant.

“McCoy, Leonard McCoy,” he offered belatedly, wiping his hand in the seat of his trousers before offering it to her. “Director of News, Starfleet News Network.”

“Really?” Christine said in disbelief, looking around at the office, before she could stop herself. The man opposite her grinned, turning a handsome face to downright sinfully gorgeous.

“Don’t let the office fool ya honey, this is the nervecentre of SNN.”

He slid his glance sideways to monitor the bank of screens, frowned, picked up a comm-link from his desk and started barking into it.

“Riley, did you kick satellite eleven? Well, go kick it again. M’Benga looks like he’s reporting from the middle of a transporter beam.”

It was true. The feed on screen eleven was wavering and jumping all over the place.

“So, Christy,” McCoy said, falling back into an ancient chair that creaked ominously. “You any good?”

“It’s Christine,” she stressed, immediately annoyed. “And no, I’m not good.”

He raised one of his eyebrows. She strolled bravely up to him, planted her hands on the desk, leaned forwards and looked him dead in the eye.

“I’m _fantastic_ ,” she said simply, and pulled out her reel out from where it had been hiding underneath a stack of PADDS on McCoy’s desk. She pushed it towards him.

He looked at her appraisingly for a full minute, then said, “One month trial period. Five two-hour broadcasts a week as well as one special feature.”

“Three features,” Christine countered. “And I want an expense account.”

“Two features, and we’ll buy you some new clothes,” McCoy offered.

“Done,” said Christine, sticking out her hand again.

“Done,” said McCoy, leaning over it to drop an unexpectedly courtly kiss on her knuckles.  
Christine couldn’t shake the feeling that yes, somehow, she had been done. Well and truly.

_The sharp dig in her side from her co-anchor was all the warning that Christy got. Her arm, which was supporting her head, jerked sideways and she snapped into wakefulness just as the red light went on above the camera._

_“It’s four a.m,” she said, glancing frantically at the clock on the wall and smiling only with her lips. “And here are the fast-breaking news stories from around the alpha quadrant.”_

_She snuck a look sideways at her co-anchor who was nodding and grinning like a loon, as sleep-deprived as she was. The next time she negotiated a contract with McCoy, she was going to be very careful to read the fine print._

The one-month contract had quickly been extended into a year, then another, then a very generous five year contract with not only an expense account but an apartment paid for by the network as well. Of course, by this point she was married to McCoy, their chemistry having proven unbelievably explosive. They had argued their way into bed with one another on her third week on the job, and they had continued to argue and fuck with equal amount of enthusiasm. He had proposed after one debauched evening involving a half a bottle of tequila and three tubs of chocolate body paint. She had accepted after the other half of the bottle.

They spent most of their nights crashed out old couch in his office, watching feeds as they came in from around the quadrant and bickering about everything from what should be the lead item as to why exactly he hated her mother. She never minded the fact that he would cancel dates and holidays because of breaking news stories, because half the time she was pinging around the solar system chasing down stories herself. They got used to having sex over comm link.

But by the time five years had passed, far sooner than she had thought it would, that wasn’t enough anymore; it was clear to her that McCoy was far more committed to the news than he ever was to her and what really worried her was that she knew she would end up exactly the same way if she didn’t do something to fix the situation. They parted amicably, on the whole, the incident with the stuffed giraffe and the jar of peanut butter being the exception to the divorce proceedings rather than the rule.

The day the divorce was finalised, they went out drinking together and ended up crashing on the couch again. By common consent, they stayed away from the tequila.

_The shot opened onto hands polishing the grim relic of Earth’s judicial past, now being used for the first time in over three hundred years. A complicated legal battle had recently ended, all appeals to the Federation High Court now lost. Christopher Pike, until two years ago a law abiding man, was to be sentenced to death for the crime of killing the Klingon that he claimed was responsible for the death of his only son. The battle had raged in courts on Earth as well as on Qu’Nos, but what it boiled down to was that there was only the word of Christopher Pike that it had been Konjah of the House of Anag who had fired wildly in the street of the contested border outpost planet and had hit his boy. Enraged, Pike had tackled the youth and strangled him to death with his own sash of honour._

_The Klingon High Council had demanded the death penalty; the border colony that Pike had settled on after his wife had died was part of a group of planets that was in the process of being handed over to the Klingons. Earth had managed to extradite Pike, but they could not manage to change Klingon law. Death demanded death, and as there was no evidence other that Pike’s that Konjah had killed little Billy Pike, Christopher Pike had to die. The Klingons had chosen one of the most barbaric forms of punishment, the electric chair._

_Reluctantly, the only working example of an electric chair, belonging to the old San Francisco Jail, was now being primed for use again._

_Christy walked solemnly into shot, explaining the story to the people watching all over the galaxy. She found it very hard to keep the look of disgust from her face as she explained that how on midnight, July 15th, Christopher Pike was scheduled to die._

_Sometimes journalistic impartiality was a bitch._

Working at SNN was everything she had ever dreamed of, and also her worst nightmare at exactly the same time. She loved the cut and thrust of Federation politics, tracking down stories, scooping rivals like Sulu and Scott and the easy camaraderie between herself and her team. Working with McCoy was always simultaneously frustrating and rewarding as he encouraged her to dig deeper and go further to ferret out the truth.

But every night when she made it back to the somewhat sterile apartment, she’d replicate a meal for one and drink a quarter-sized bottle of wine before lying in her big king-sized bed, utterly alone. Her job and its hectic schedule meant meeting any man was well-nigh impossible, and she was sure that it wasn’t a coincidence that every time she struck up a friendship with an attractive man at work, the Director of News would have him sent to the most remote place in the universe he could find. Christine just couldn’t handle being responsible for anyone else being sent to cover the Delta Vega beat any more, so she stopped looking for companionship at work other than a slice of pizza and a blazing argument with McCoy over whether Gaila should be allowed a prime-time anchor desk or not.

Besides, with this election battle between their Governor, Harry Mudd, and the aggressive Nero looming, it wasn’t as if she really had the time to worry about her personal life anyway. She should be more worried about the fact that since McCoy had sent her to take part in the Red Arrow aerial shuttle display team and made her pilot one of the stunt craft, she hadn’t been able to sleep more than three hours a night for fear of nightmares about crashed shuttles.

_“He’s soft on crime! He’s soft on the Romulans! He’s actually limp on a drug-testing policy on...”_

Red faced and snarling, Nero was yelling directly into the camera and pointing a finger at the Governor, who was fighting to get a word in edgeways. Neither man was paying attention to Christy, who was supposed to be chairing this discussion.

She tried several times to get them to stop screaming at each other, their words now completely unintelligible. In the end, she had to resort to base tactics. She who yells loudest, yells last.

“Gentlemen!” she bellowed at the top of her voice.

Both men stopped, puzzled by her interruption.

“I’m afraid that’s all the time we have available at present,” she began, crossing her legs and smiling sweetly at them as the floor manager began to count them out. The governor seized the opportunity for the last word, leaning into shot and hissing at Nero,

“I hate the Romulans just as much as you do!”

Christy was positive that McCoy had left her eye-roll at them both, a habit she had picked up from her ex-husband, on the tape that went out across the galaxy on purpose. Bastard.


	2. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 2451 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

The final straw was the item about the kazoo players.

It was the last item on the one pm news round-up, the traditional light-hearted piece of news that was supposed to refresh the palate of the more jaded news junkie. She was manning the desk alone, as demographics said that the viewers that tuned into this particular broadcast preferred her husky, modulated tones to the more glib presenting style of Hannity and McKenna, who were more suited to the early morning breakfast show. She started the item in good faith, reading from the prompter. It had been added at the last minute, so she hadn’t had a chance to practice her delivery in rehearsals. She started well, faltering only when the teleprompter revealed the second half of her lines.

“This just in, at three pm local time today, fifteen thousand students from schools all over the Federation will be joined electronically to play...”

She paused briefly, before forcing herself to continue.

“Darktown Strutters’ Ball...on the kazoo, for the President of the United Federation of Planets.”

She could feel her lips twitching, and the laughter beginning to rise. She desperately tried to hold it together long enough to finish the segment and sign off.

“The President, as you know, is a former kazoo player...” She was now smirking, and couldn’t help it.

“...and may wish to join in.”

That was it. She lost it, on air, and began to laugh.

“Wait a minute,” she gasped, through the laughter. “Wait a minute. We’re doing a story about fifteen thousand kazoo players, and the President of the Federation?”

She began to laugh hysterically, all the time aware of the red light on top of the camera blinking away. That just made her laugh more.

Upstairs in his office, McCoy was on a comm link while watching the screen that showed him the feed from the studio below.

“Hang on a minute,” he said to the person on the other end of the line. “I think my ex-wife is cracking up. What do you mean, give her a vacation?”

He paused to look out of the floor-to ceiling windows that looked down on the studio floor, and watched Christy lay her head on the desk, pound it with her fists and let lose another peal of hysterical laughter.

“Give her a vacation,” he agreed, looking worried.

Christy had to take a boat to reach the hotel, and the minute it fired up its engine and started to deliver her across the large lake, she immediately felt herself relax. The slight spray from the waves and the wind in her hair helped lift a stressful weight off her shoulders. When McCoy had called her into his office, she was sure he was going to read her the riot act and she couldn’t blame him. Her behaviour on-air had been completely unprofessional, and would have got any other anchor on the show fired. She knew that he could never fire her. Despite their divorce she knew that she still held as large a place in his heart as he did in hers. They had just let their careers get in the way of each other.

The reception to the hotel was expensively rustic, and she allowed herself a moment to take in the many candles artfully arranged around the lobby. She was handed one by a bellhop, and she rested it on the counter as she entered her details. It was all Christine’s fault; she was so busy taking in the opulence of the hotel lobby and providing a thumb-print to the check-in details that she didn’t notice that she put her taper down right next to another guest’s credit card.

The smell of burning plastic drew her attention away from the view of the lake beyond the desk, and she hastily pulled the mangled gold-coloured card out of the flame. Embarrassed beyond belief, she waved the card in the air and blew on it until the flames went out.

“I’m so sorry,” she began, turning to face the guest whose card she’d ruined, but then she stopped dead. This was no mere man in front of her; this was an Adonis. Tall, well-built with blond hair and the most amazing cerulean eyes she had ever seen. Her sentence petered out completely; she, Christy Chapel, famed broadcaster and investigative journalist was lost for words.

“Don’t worry about it,” the Adonis said, smiling easily. He took the ruined card from her unresisting hand with ease and threw it carelessly away. “I have plenty more.”

His hand lingered briefly over hers, and then he turned back to the check in desk, pulling another card from his wallet and handing it to the waiting staff member who was staring at him moonily.

Shaking herself, Christy turned away, positive that she looked as love-struck as the check-in clerk. She completed check-in without setting fire to anything else, then the bell-hop showed her to her room. She was conscious of the fact that the Adonis’ eyes had tracked her thoughtfully until she had disappeared from sight.

The first thing she did, after cracking open the mini-bar and toasting McCoy’s unusual generosity with the expense account, was run a bath so big and deep that she thought she’d need a step ladder to get out of it. A display screen mounted on the wall over the bath informed her of the hotel’s attractions, and she decided on boating for the first full day of her vacation. The hotel was surrounded by water and kept a fleet of boats for the amusements of guests. It had been a while since she had been on the water, but she was confident she could manage.

The staff member in charge of issuing the boats obviously thought differently, because while other guests happily sailed around the lake in the little brightly coloured boats on the video, white sails slapping in the breeze, Christy was given a canoe.

An old one.

Still, she reasoned, paddling out on the calm lake, she was in the outdoors. She was breathing in fresh air, and not having to worry about deadlines or camera angles or whether or not her favourite blue dress was too short for the midday news. It was so quiet here she could actually hear birds chirping. Actual birds!

She beamed a big smile, struck energetically at the water with her paddle and promptly lost it. Cursing, she leaned over in the canoe but it floated just out of her reach. Slightly panicked, Christy started to use her hands to nudge the canoe back towards the shoreline.

Despite her best efforts, the canoe barely budged an inch.

She sat back in the canoe, panting and annoyed. If McCoy were here he’d be laughing his perfectly toned ass off. But then, if McCoy were here, he’d probably use this quiet moment alone on the lake to plan the next SNN feature in Federation-Klingon peace talks. The man never switched off.

Just then, a roaring noise disturbed the peace and solitude of the lake and a boat – no, a _yacht_ , the thing was _massive_ , so much fancier than anything she had seen so far came zooming around the corner. A tall man peered up over the splashguard at her and angled the yacht towards her.

Oh fantastic. It was the Adonis from check in, the one who had watched her burn his gold card.

“Need a hand?” he called, smiling.

“Oh, yes please!” she replied, putting aside her embarrassment for the sake of getting back to her room before her next birthday.

He leaned over the side of the yacht to take her hand, but the side of the yacht was just too high. Christy overbalanced and ended up dunked in the freezing cold lake. She spluttered and splashed for a few seconds, before a warm hand wrapped itself around her wrist and she felt herself yanked up in the air. Before she knew it, she was standing on one of the luxurious leather seats, dripping water everywhere.

“Hi,” the Adonis said, grinning at her again. “You’re a little wet.”

“Yes,” Christy said intelligently. “Wet. I am. I’m wet.”

He turned away and bent over to rummage in a storage locker. Despite being dunked then pulled through the air, Christy couldn’t help but notice the view as he bent over.

Wow. No wonder he could haul an average sized woman through the air with ease. He had muscles on his muscles, and none of them look out of place.

He appeared upright again with a soft towel in his hands, but instead of handing it to her he began to rub it carefully over her arms, down over her torso and her legs. It was when he was beginning to work it back up her legs that she squealed inelegantly and grabbed it from him.  
He leaned back against the dashboard of the boat, all lithe grace and coiled muscular charm. He watched her as she dabbed ineffectually at herself, a small smile playing on those wonderfully kissable lips.

“I’m Jim,” he said, reaching his hand out for the damp towel.

“I’m Christy,” she replied, and that was that.

During the next three weeks, they didn’t spend any time apart. When they weren’t rolling around Jim’s vast acreage of bed in the hotel’s Presidential Suite, they were dining intimately at the best restaurants his groundcar could reach, or swimming by candlelight at a grotto she could have sworn he had built especially for them. Christy was swept away by the attention he lavished on her. Nothing was too much trouble, or effort, or money. He showered her with gifts and took nothing from her except her time, which she was all too glad to give. Even when she had begged off to visit the hotel’s beautician Jim had followed, taking the opportunity to spend longer with his team of stylists than she did with her own solitary nail technician.

She floated through those weeks on a cloud of loved-up bliss; it had been the perfect holiday romance. Two days before she was due back at the studio, Jim woke to find Christy looking pensive.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, rolling over to latch onto one of her nipples.

She let out a small sigh, and began to stroke his blond hair absently.

“It’s almost over,” she said quietly, arching her back as he suckled more determinedly. “In two days’ time, I’ll be back in San Francisco and you’ll be in New York, and we’ll go back to how it was before.”

Jim rolled so he lay directly over her, and released her nipple with a pop.

“No, it won’t,” he said with an air of certainty.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Sure about that, are we?” she asked, a hint of a smile on her lips.

“Yes,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Because we’re going to get married.”

“Married?” she repeated dumbly.

Jim leant over the side of the bed and started to rummage underneath it.

“I had planned on doing this properly,” he told her. “In fact, I’ve got a chamber quartet flying in for lunch, and the ring was supposed to be served up to you on a bed of wild strawberries…”

“Oh, I love strawberries!” Christy blurted.

Jim grinned goofily at her. “I know. But I was hoping that you’d love this more.”

Propping himself up on one elbow, he opened up a small jewellery box bearing the name of a jeweller so exclusive Christy had only ever peered through the window of his only store. Doing that had nearly drained her bank balance by proxy.

“It’s…it’s…so big,” she breathed, and Jim smirked.

“That’s what you said the first time,” he said as he nuzzled into her ear and she slapped his shoulder reflexively.

The diamond grabbed every available particle of light and shone like a star gone nova. It was a huge stone, and as Jim proudly slipped it onto her finger she couldn’t help but flash back to the small but elegant stone that McCoy had given her, gruffly telling her that it was a family heirloom from a time when the McCoys couldn’t afford to give whole diamonds, but they did give all their hearts.

He had refused to take the ring back after the planet’s most amicable divorce. She usually wore it on a chain around her neck, but she had left it behind in San Francisco before going on vacation.

Compared to the rock now weighing down her left hand, that little diamond chip looked cheap.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, turning her finger this way and that. “But when did you have time to pick it out?”

“I just commed my assistant and had her do it. Janice has wonderful taste, doesn’t she?” Jim said proudly. “Lucky that she’s got the same size finger as you.”

“Yes,” Christine said, her enjoyment of her new jewellery fading just a little. “Yes, it’s lucky.”

“So,” Jim said, a little muffled as he returned his attention to her breasts. “You’ll come to New York and live with me there. I have an apartment that overlooks the Federation Headquarters. Or we can live in the house in the Hamptons and commute, but I’m not wild about long shuttle flights.”

“Only two houses?” Christy teased.

“Three, if you count the Venetian palazzo, but that’s more of a summer home,” Jim replied seriously before returning to a far more pleasant way of using his mouth.

“But my job…,” Christy said weakly, seduced by the shine of the diamond and the play of his lips on her skin.

Jim made a dismissive noise that tickled the delicate underside of her breast.

“You hate your job,” he said firmly. “You’ve done nothing but complain about it since you’ve been here. I’ve been in touch with Pierre Robau.”

That got Christy’s attention.

“Head of the Kelvin News Company?”

“We have the same broker,” Jim replied distractedly, seeking out a particularly sensitive patch of skin. “I mentioned to him that my wife would be living in New York, and he offered you a contract on the spot fronting the new breakfast show.”

“I’d be on a sofa?” Christy had fought all her life to be behind a desk or in front of a camera. Sitting on a sofa and smiling while reporting on stories about cat fashion shows hardly seemed like real journalism.

“For two hours a day, then you’ll be back home with the kids,” Jim told her, moving south.

“You want kids?” Christy breathed, rocking her pelvis forward.

Jim’s reply was a little hard to hear, but it sounded like “dozens”.

“I’m in,” she panted, just before he joined her.


	3. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 3071 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

The limousine ground car that sailed neatly up the drive of Starfleet Network News in San Francisco was the biggest and most expensive that had ever been seen on site, grander even that that of Jonathan Archer, the Network’s eccentric owner. Christy exited hand in hand with Jim, who surveyed the slightly-shabby looking building and row after row of expensive communications reception equipment. He was doing his best not to show his distaste, she could tell, but her home for the last seven years was far from the state of the art headquarters of Kirk Enterprises. From the look on his face, it was light years away from it.

A small pang of defensiveness hit her right in the stomach, before she caught sight of her left hand and smiled.

“Come on,” she said, tugging at him. “I want you to meet Keenser.”

Pavel Chekov, general dogsbody and youngest person on staff, paused as he made his way up the stairs to McCoy’s office. He smiled as he saw the familiar figure of Christy Chapel get out of the fancy groundcar, but his features darkened as he saw the handsome man that got out of the car with her. He ran the rest of the way up the stairs, dodging past camera techs and admin staff in the main bullpen area.

“McCoy!” he burst out as soon as he threw the door open. He shook the shoulder of the dishevelled man who was snoring on the couch.

McCoy snorted and groaned.

“Christy’s back!” Chekov said urgently, and McCoy’s eyes snapped open. He launched himself from the sofa and started batting ineffectually at his clothing, trying to rid his shirt and trousers of days worth of creases and odd junk food related stains.

Chekov darted out of the room as McCoy sent a quick glance across at the bank of display screens on the wall. They currently showed two war zones, a protest march, an economic report from Ferengar and Gaila getting ready to do her piece to camera on the execution of Christopher Pike.

McCoy let out a sigh of relief. Gaila was beautiful, but she just didn’t have the journalistic skills that Christy did. The office has been strange for the last three weeks. There was all too obviously something missing, something wrong. He had caught himself bellowing down into the bullpen for her no end of times, and the late nights spent editing tapes seemed a lot longer without her around.

Now Christy was back, things would be all right again.

“Now darling, you wait here,” Christine purred to Jim as a wary-eyed Keenser eyed them from behind his security booth. “I won’t be long.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” he asked, fingers toying with the lapels of her jacket.

Christine pulled a face. “After five years of marriage, I think I need to tell him myself. I’ll only be ten minutes.”

“Can’t you make it less? I’m not sure I can bear being away from you for that long,” Jim said huskily as he mouthed at her neck. “Make it five.”

“Five,” agreed Christy, and flashing a grin at Keenser, who was busy frisky a harmless old gent who had just walked into the reception area, she made her way into the busy bullpen. Keenser rolled his eyes and looked at the old man, who grinned and made fanning motions with a hand. Keenser nodded in agreement.

“We haven’t been apart for the last four hundred and eighty two hours,” Jim explained to Keenser, who was patting down the old man very thoroughly despite being barely half his height.

Keenser nodded, and said nothing.

“Move!” Chekov shouted as he dashed through the bullpen, McCoy’s coffee sloshing over the tips of his fingers, burning them. He found McCoy sitting on one of the tape review desks, running a sonic shaver over himself while one of the tech guys hovered nervously in the background.

“Boss, the Late Show’s doing a whole week of broadcasts from the summit on Muntab. How many people are you going to send?”

“One,” replied McCoy, peering at a screen while running the shaver over his jaw.

“One?” questioned Chekov, confused.

“One,” repeated McCoy. “Nothing ever happens at a summit and nobody knows where the hell Muntab is anyway.”

“Right,” said Chekov, shrugging and accepting his boss’ word as law. “Call on line two.” He handed over the coffee and plunged back into the chaos behind him.

“Gaila, stay with a one-shot!” McCoy barked at the screen. “Jesus, what an air head,” he muttered as he sipped his coffee.

Christy came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hiya!” he offered in greeting before turning away to pick up a comm link.

“McCoy,” Christy said, annoyed, but her ex-husband cut her off before she could say anything else.

“Get downtown,” he ordered. “They’ve moved Pike from the pen to the jail.”

“Three weeks in Canada and this is all the welcome I get?” Christy asked, aggrieved.

“No!” McCoy bellowed into the comm link, slapping it down and turning to look at her properly. “Welcome back. Thank God you’re back. It’s good to see you.” Here he dropped a kiss onto her cheek. “Now, get down to the jail.”

“I can’t,” Christy said evenly.

“What do you mean, you can’t?” barked McCoy. “This is the story of the century!”

Christy looked at him, clearly unimpressed with his hyperbole.

“Well, the decade, anyway,” he allowed. “I need you there.”

Christy grinned.

“I’ve got news of my own, McCoy.”

He ignored her as he peered intently at a live feed coming from the San Francisco jail. SNN’s cameraman was trying to get a close-up of Pike being brought into the jail, but somehow in the crush of journalists, camera operators and prison guards, he had been knocked to the ground, the camera swinging wildly.

“The cameraman fell down!” McCoy shouted. “We’ve got a dog’s point of view!”

On screen, the image righted itself to show a slightly nervous looking beautiful Orion woman trying to look serious, standing outside the gates of the jail.

“ _And so,_ ” she began in a breathy voice. “ _With the clang of the cell doors and the hiss of one hundred and twenty thousand volts of California power less than twelve hours away_...”

Christy pulled a face at the image and McCoy grimaced.

“Oh, nice image Gaila,” he muttered.

“ _Christopher Pike is now being led to his lonely, private vigil waiting..._ ”

“What a twinkie,” Christy scowled.

“ _...perhaps eagerly, for his own personal death knell and deliverance._

Gaila’s sombre face suddenly, incongruently brightened.

“ _For Starfleet News Network, I’m Gaila, San Francisco County Jail, San Francisco.”_ she said chirpily, gazing into the camera for a long moment. When she could still see the red light blinking on top of the camera she sent a quick, pleading glance sideways to somebody off-camera.

“Oh dear God,” muttered McCoy. “Save me from reporters that have read a book.”

McCoy took off for the stairs that led to his office and Christy followed him, determined to make him listen to her news.

“I’ve missed you around here Christy,” he tossed back airily. “There’s been nobody to fight with.”

“Well, I’ve never been happier,” she replied.

He snorted as he headed over to a data console to check incoming news updates.

“That’s the trouble with you romantics,” he told her. “You think divorce is a passport to happiness.”

“If you were so unhappy with the divorce, why didn’t you contest it?” Christy sighed, pulling off her coat and tossing it onto the sofa.

“Because you didn’t ask for a dime!” McCoy said, as if talking to a five year old. “And you accused me of having an affair with T’Pau of Vulcan. Now, I like T’Pau, but don’t be ridiculous.”

Christy laughed, as she knew he had intended.

“Well, it was symbolic McCoy,” she explained. “You’re lucky I didn’t claim the war between the Federation and the Romulans.”

McCoy laughed, then looked at her fondly.

“We’ve had some great stories, haven’t we kid?” He looked at her for a long moment, then headed to the coffee pot to pour himself a cup, his third of the day.

Christy sighed. “That’s your problem, McCoy. Everything’s a story to you.”

She followed him over to the coffee pot and started hunting around the collection of packets and sachets that Chekov kept stocked there.

“Now, now Christine,” McCoy scolded. “There’s never been a story more important to me than you.”

He poured himself a cup of coffee and beamed at her.

“Oh sure,” Christy scoffed. “That’s why, on our first anniversary, you sent me to cover the war with the Silurians.”

She picked up three packets of sweetener and started to dump them in his coffee.

“I won’t even mention the honeymoon,” she carried on.

“Is it my fault a volcano erupted?” McCoy asked, heading back towards his desk.

“It’s your fault we had to cover it!” Christy replied, exasperated.

“Of course we had to cover it!” he said. “We’re in the news business. You can’t experience lava indoors!”

“Well I’m not in the news business anymore,” Christy said, taking the opportunity that presented itself. “I’m quitting.”

“Oh come on,” McCoy groaned, trying to see past her to the bank of screens. “Every time you leave here for more than an hour, you’re quitting the news business.”

He frowned at the screens, went over to the comm link and picked it up.

“Why is there a fire on Channel Four and we don’t have it?” he barked.

He was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“What?” he yelled.

Chekov, by now used to the fact that his boss had his volume setting turned up to eleven, breezed into the room.

“Breakfast, boss, and twenty four hour ratings,” he said evenly as he put a pizza box down on McCoy’s desk.

“How are they?” McCoy asked, going straight for the PADD.

“Down two points,” Chekov replied. He looked under his impossibly long lashes straight at Christy. “But Christy’s back now.”

“Oh,” Christy said with a deceptively sweet grin. “Gaila’s not working out, huh?”

McCoy made an irritated dismissive gesture, and Chekov took the hint.

“Yes, she’s working out,” he lied, settling himself in his chair. “It’s not her fault that the news is lousy.”

“Same healthy breakfast I see,” Christy sniffed as McCoy opened the pizza box eagerly.

“Uh-huh,” McCoy replied, rolling back his sleeves. “Why don’t you scoot down to the jail and relieve Gaila?”

“I told you, McCoy,” Christy said patiently, perching herself on the end of the desk. “I’m quitting.”

“Yeah,” snorted McCoy as he opened selected a slice of pizza.

“I’m tired of off-planet trips, reporting from Betazed and press conferences.”

“Sure,” McCoy nodded.

“I want to lead a nice, normal, relaxed kind of life. Oh, and one other thing.”

She timed this very carefully. He _almost_ had the slice of pizza at his lips.

“I’m getting married.”

The slice of pizza wilted in his grip. Smiling victoriously, Christy headed back to the sofa to retrieve her coat.

“I can’t leave you alone for a minute,” McCoy said in disbelief.

“Boss, I’ve got a tape of that fire you wanted!” Chekov shouted as he barged into the room. McCoy didn’t even look in his direction as he planted one large hand in the middle of the smaller man’s chest and propelled him backwards towards the door.

“Boss...the fire tape...” Chekov protested as the door shut firmly in his face.

“I thought you were happy with the divorce,” McCoy said accusingly.

Christy rolled her eyes.

He stalked towards her.

“Who is he?” he demanded.

“I met him on vacation,” she grinned. “You wouldn’t know him. He’s not in the news business.”

McCoy let out a bark of laughter.

“What’ll you talk about?” he asked dismissively.

“Who needs to talk?” she shot back.

“Yeah, right,” he agreed, frowning.

Christy decided to drop her next bombshell. God, this was fun.

“We’re getting married the day after tomorrow in New York,” she told him.

“Why so soon?” he asked intently.

“I just didn’t feel like being engaged for a long time,” Christy shrugged. “Jim’s been married before. He wanted to do it right away too.”

Luckily McCoy was staring away at the corner of the room otherwise he would have seen through the lie she had just told him. He could always tell when she was lying. He had a look that would cut right through her and expose the truth as delicately as a surgeon would slice through skin and muscle.

It had been Jim that had wanted a quick wedding; as soon as she had agreed to marry him, he had spent an hour on the comm link with his assistant in New York. By the time she had emerged from the swimming pool that masqueraded as a bath tub, the efficient Miss Rand had located a venue, arranged for somebody to officiate, booked an appointment for a fitting with one of the most exclusive bridal designers in the city and found them a honeymoon villa on Risa.

Christy had bitten back the remark that was hurtling towards her lips; she was sure that Miss Rand was just doing her job. She seemed to be doing it awfully well, though.

McCoy had been distracted by one of the screens, where the video feed was flickering. He picked up his comm link again.

“Chekov!” he barked, then turned to Christy.

“Is he rich?” he asked.

“Matter of fact...yes,” she said, covering her engagement ring with the fold of her coat.

“Chekov, kick satellite eleven for Christ’s...how rich?” McCoy frowned

“Well,” said Christy, enjoying herself just a little. “He owns his own building in New York and he’s the largest supplier of athletics equipment on the planet.”

“Athletic equipment? Bowling balls and baseball mitts? Well, that should make for very snappy pillow talk!”

McCoy laughed to himself as he made his way to the window to watch Chekov give the massive satellite eleven a good kick on the rim. He peered at the still-wavering screen.

“Again!” he called.

Sighing, Chekov grabbed hold of the metal struts and pulled himself up to jump on the centre of the dish.

McCoy checked the screen again. It flickered one last time, then popped perfectly into view.

“Perfect!” he yelled, then focused his attention on Christy again.

“Jim is a wonderful man,” Christy said firmly. “He is decent and kind and caring.”

“Sounds like someone I should marry,” McCoy observed dryly.

“So, does he live in an office building?” he asked, sitting next to her.

“No, no he has an apartment at the Federation Plaza,” Christy boasted. “Or there’s the house in the Hamptons. And the palazzo in Venice, although that’s more of a holiday home.”

“Ow!” McCoy howled suddenly, grabbing his neck.

“Oh, pinched nerve?” Christy asked innocently.

“Yeah, would you...?” McCoy ventured.

“No,” she said flatly.

“Oh,” he said, the pain in his neck disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. “Well Christy, you’re going to become gracious. Sip champagne, have power din-dins with the high climbers at the firm.”

“And babies. Lots of babies,” she said with relish.

“I could have given you babies Christy, all the babies you wanted,” he lamented.

“Well, that’s the problem. I could have had them by myself – no help from you. Aside of course, from the heavy chore of conceiving.”

Her eyes held a teasing twinkle that eased her harsh words.

“Jim wants to nurture them,” she breathed.

McCoy scowled. “No, he wants to put them into competitive kindergartens and make them into angry lawyers. What?”

The last word had been aimed at Chekov, who had burst through the door again.

“Pike’s in jail,” the young man blurted out. “What do we do with Gaila?”

“Keep that little champion there, no food, no water!” McCoy said intently.

“Got it,” said Chekov, clearly lying but going with the flow. He left as suddenly as he had arrived, leaving McCoy and Christy alone again.

“This is going to be a big story, Christy. I can’t believe you’re giving up the news business to marry a rowing machine hustler,” he sighed as he returned to his desk.

“No, I’m just giving up reporting,” Christy corrected. “Monday morning I start as the new host on AM Manhattan.”

“In the fake living room with the fat weather man?” McCoy said in disbelief.

“And the afternoons off!” Christy crowed.

“Interviewing showbusiness people, the dregs of the world!”

“And a home life,” she sighed.

“You’re going to have it all, huh?” he said eventually.

“I’m going to try,” she told him.

“Well, I guess if you want to move to New York and raise little suits, I’m for it a thousand percent,” he said magnanimously. “You can fall in love in three weeks.”

“It took us only two,” Christy offered.

“Was it that long for you?” McCoy said with an honesty that pierced Christy to the core.

“Oh,” said Christy, moved. “I love it when you’re sincere. It’s completely transparent, but... it’s kind of charming.”

She gathered up her belongings, and headed for the door.

“Well, I’ll see you,” she said, but she only got two steps before McCoy threw himself bodily in front of her.

“Let me take you and Jack to lunch!” he offered.

“Jim!” she corrected.

“Yeah, Jim,” McCoy said in a blasé tone. “Tell him to meet us in half an hour.”

“No, we’re on our way to the shuttle dock,” Christy told him.

“You mean the rascal’s out there and you won’t let me meet him?” McCoy smirked at her. “What, are you afraid of the comparison?”

He leaned against the doorframe and grinned. There wasn’t much in it, height wise – McCoy was just taller than Jim, wider through the shoulders, but took less care of his body. Jim’s good looks could have come straight from a fashion magazine – in fact, he had starred in the in-flight magazine in the feature on “Top Ten Sexiest CEOs”. Both men had confidence oozing from every pore, both were powerful and successful, in their own way.

They both had _amazing_ backsides.

“After you,” Christy said, eventually. She knew this wasn’t going to go well, but there was some twisted journalistic curiosity in her that wanted to see what would happen when her past and her future met.


	4. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 3080 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

“You’re sure?” Jim said excitedly into his communicator. “Excellent!”

He hung up with a big grin and turned to Keenser.

“My nearest competition just went belly-up! They got leveraged too high, and the sharks got them. That’s the way it goes, right Keenser?”

Keenser made a non-committal grunt as he motioned for the elderly man to sign the visitor’s log on the front desk.

The doors at the end of the corridor slid open smoothly and McCoy came striding out, followed by Christy. McCoy sailed past Kirk and headed straight to the little old man who was standing at the front desk.

“Kirk? I’m Leonard McCoy.” He pumped the man’s hand energetically and raised his voice. “How are you? I hear you’re a _terrific_ Parresi Squares player.”

Christy rolled her eyes but didn’t hide her grin at McCoy’s obvious tactics.

“McCoy, this is not him,” she said sweetly. “ _That’s_ him.”

Kirk stood up from the waiting area couch, pulling himself up to his full, impressive height.

“Hi,” he smiled.

“Hi,” said McCoy, still shaking the old man’s hand. McCoy’s eyes narrowed slightly, but then his face was full of a beaming grin.

“I’m sorry,” he said, making his way over to shake Kirk’s hand. “She said the guy with the tic. How are you?”

“It’s my pleasure McCoy,” Jim returned. “I’ve certainly heard a lot about you.”

“Oh,” said McCoy.

Kirk dropped his hand and went over to Christy, sweeping her up in a full body embrace.

“Christy! Guess what?” he asked. “Decker Industrial went belly-up!”

“Oh Jim, that’s wonderful!” Christy enthused, tugging on the lapels of Jim’s stylish suit and kissing him passionately.

McCoy watched, an inscrutable look on his face. The old man tugged at his sleeve.

“Hey, you own this network?” he asked peevishly.

“No, he’s an older guy, looks a little like the man from “Quantum Leap”,” McCoy said absently as he watched the love of his life attempt to suck another man’s tonsils from his throat.

“You’re marrying a wonderful girl, Kirk,” McCoy said, interrupting the kiss to drape an arm around Christy’s shoulders.

“I know,” Jim replied, beaming.

“I wouldn’t let her reaction to shellfish put you off. A lot of people turn red and swell up, get blotches all over their body.”

Christy huffed, not appreciating McCoy’s lies. He carried on as if he hadn’t heard her.

“I just used to take lotion and rub it…everywhere,” McCoy confided, letting his hand drift suggestively a few centimetres away from Christy’s breasts.

“Anyway, don’t worry about it, the scratching usually goes away after a week or two,” McCoy said cheerfully, smacking Kirk on the chest before wandering off to watch the news reader on the display screens in the foyer with the old man.

“I like this girl,” he confided to the old man, who grunted in agreement. “She’s got a great mouth. Reminds me of Gaila.”

Christy sighed in amusement.

“Jim knows everything about me, McCoy,” she told him. Jim looked lovingly at her.

“What?” barked McCoy. “Even the, you know…,” and he mimed the universal signal for ‘raging alcoholism’. He broke down laughing with the old man.

Jim looked unimpressed, but McCoy calmed down enough to speak to him.

“Just kidding. You’re a lucky man, Kirk, and I mean that with all sincerity.”

Christy had to give him points, to the untrained ear he actually _did_ sound sincere. Still, she had known him long enough to be waiting for the punchline.

“Thanks, McCoy,” Jim said innocently. “Say, do you know what she did on our third date?”

“Do we ever!” sniggered McCoy, and he and his new partner in crime laughed hysterically again.

“Oh,” said Kirk, looking upset.

“I wish you’d let me take you two out to lunch,” McCoy said suddenly, dropping the old man and draping an arm around both Kirk and Christy. “Sort of a hail and farewell.”

“Well,” Kirk replied hesitantly. “We’ve got reservations on the four o’clock shuttle.”

“Oh, is the corporate one down?” asked McCoy solicitously.

“It’s in Australia today,” Kirk said, consulting his PADD, and therefore missing the aggrieved look that shot across McCoy’s face. Christy didn’t miss it though, and smiled triumphantly at her ex.

“We’ll have to go commercial,” Kirk said, wrinkling his nose a little.

“Jim, Jim,” McCoy scolded. “This is San Francisco! There are shuttles leaving every hour on the hour to New York! You should try to understand something, it isn’t every day that a man gets to meet the love of his ex-wife’s life.” He used his best sincere tone.

“Oh!” Christy said in disbelief, which Jim took to be sentiment.

“Well, we were going to grab a bite, anyway, honey. I guess an hour wouldn’t hurt,” Jim offered.

“Are you sure, darling?” Christy asked, her sense of danger beginning to send her warning messages.

“Sure!” both men replied. McCoy smacked his forehead dramatically.

“Oh, me McCoy, you darling,” he joked, and Jim smiled. “Come on kids, let’s go,” McCoy carried on, hustling them out of the front door.

“You know Jim, I love that jacket,” McCoy commented as they headed out towards the groundcars.

Christy sent him a sly look – the difference between Jim’s modern, formal elegance couldn’t be more different from McCoy’s rumpled shirt and jeans.

“If the lapels were any wider, it’d be almost _too_ post-retro,” McCoy mused. “It would look great with my jodhpurs, don’t you think, Christy?”

Christy said nothing, not willing to be drawn into McCoy’s teasing.

They were halfway down the drive towards where Jim’s groundcar was waiting when Christy stopped suddenly. She had a man on each arm, and she jerked them all to a halt.

“Oh, I left my PADD,” she remembered, half-turning back towards the entrance.

“I’ll get it!” McCoy said hurriedly, dashing back towards the building.

“Chekov!” McCoy yelled as he barrelled through the doors into the bullpen, scattering slow-moving employees like bowling pins.

“Yo!” yelled Chekov, who was on a comm link to Gaila’s news team.

“Get over to the communications room and book every seat on every shuttle going to New York in the next twenty four hours,” McCoy said quickly.

“McCoy, that’ll take all day!” Chekov said in disbelief.

“First you book the Giants, then you book the 49ers, then Kelvin News employees,” McCoy carried on without acknowledging Chekov’s complaint. “I’ll be at the restaurant, you know how to get me.”

He gave Chekov a cheerful slap on the chest and took off towards the doors again, but Chekov moved quickly and grabbed onto his arm.

“Then you’ll put me on the election?” he demanded.

“Kid, this assignment is so special that it’ll make the election look like a kid’s party,” McCoy lied. “I need a man with a strong journalistic background, Chekov,” he said intently, grabbing Chekov by the collar and looking him dead in the eyes. “Chekov…I need _you_.”

Chekov’s eyes lit up with a zealous gleam, and McCoy took off again for the doors.

“McCoy, I majored in astronavigation!” Chekov yelled, panicked.

“Perfect!” McCoy yelled back, pausing by the doors. “You won’t get lost on your way!”

He gave an ebullient thumbs up, then disappeared through the doors. Chekov thrust his thumb in the air in a puzzled response, then took off in the direction of the communications centre.

 

The sports bar that served as the unofficial hang-out of the SNN staff was as crowded as ever. The noise was incredible, from both the many screens that displayed sporting events from around the galaxy and the rough and ready clientele who ate, drank and gambled at high volume.

McCoy collared a familiar server who greeted him with a nod.

“Christy and I will have the usual,” he told him, and the man nodded.

“Two bourbons,” he said, not bothering to write it down.

“I’ll have a bellini,” Kirk added, “Fresh peach juice, not concentrate, and either Dom Perignon or Veuve Cliquot.” He looked around, taking in the dingy establishment with an air of distaste.

The server stared at him for a second, open-mouthed.

“We’ll have to send out for it,” he said eventually, and disappeared.

Kirk followed Christy and McCoy up to the replica boxing ring that held all the tables. He handed his fiancée into a corner seat, but McCoy slid into the seat next to her, forcing Kirk to sit across the table from them.

“Sorry,” he yelled, sitting down. “I thought you said this place was quiet!”

“It gets very quiet between pitches,” McCoy told him.

“So,” Kirk began.

“So,” McCoy interrupted. “You two are going to get married, huh?

“We certainly are,” Jim said, taking Christy’s hand across the table and smiling at her.

“Had the results of the blood test yet?” McCoy asked innocently.

“Why?” asked Christy, in her best knock-it-off tone of voice. “Is there something you’ve forgotten to tell me?”

“Oh, actually babe, he’s got a point,” said Jim, leaning across the table. “Can’t be too careful. As a matter of fact, in the last few years I’ve had sixteen pints of my blood frozen and stored just in case.”

“Oh my God,” Christy said in disbelief. “Really, sixteen pints?”

“Darling, I forgot to tell you; the day after tomorrow, eight of those pints are yours,” Jim said solemnly.

“Aw,” McCoy said, grinning at Christy. She narrowed her eyes.

“Jim, I think that’s so thoughtful of you,” she told him, ignoring the goading look on her ex-husband’s face.

“It certainly is,” McCoy agreed. “What else have you got saved up for a rainy day?”

“McCoy, don’t you think that’s enough?” Christy asked through gritted teeth.

“No, I mean, with the way you drink, maybe he’s got a spare liver someplace.”

Any rebuttal from Jim was drowned in a wave of cheering from the crowd. Their server returned with the drink order. He placed two glasses of brown liquid down in front of Christy and McCoy and told Jim his bellini was coming.

“So, you’re what a television newsman looks like,” Jim said, looking McCoy’s dishevelled clothes up and down. He preened, his outfit clearly costing thousands more than McCoy’s had when it was new. Which was several years ago.

“And you sell jockstaps,” McCoy returned.

“Five hundred million system-wide this year alone,” Jim said proudly. “If I’d invented that little thing, I’d be a rich man.”

“I thought you were a rich man?” McCoy probed. “Aren’t you a multi-millionaire?”

“Well, that depends what you mean by multi,” Jim said modestly.

“‘Multi’ usually means ‘more than one’,” McCoy told him helpfully.

“Jim, darling, we don’t need to discuss our finances with him,” Christy said hurriedly.

“Our?” McCoy said, raising an eyebrow.

“ _Our_ ,” Christy stressed, smiling smugly.

“Hey McCoy, what’re you having?” asked the server. “The pastrami’s good, the chicken salad…”

“Do you do anything grilled?” Jim asked.

“Name it!” replied the server.

“Good,” said Jim. “I’d like a little piece of fresh fish, mesquite grilled, knapped in a beurre blanc and put the sautéed baby vegetables on the side.”

Christy sent Jim an agonised look that went unnoticed. The server looked open-mouthed at Jim, who was using language unknown to man that dealt with customers who thought that burgers and fries were _haute cusine_. He turned to McCoy for help.

“What’d he say?” he demanded.

“I’ll order for all of us,” McCoy said firmly. “Three specials and a pitcher of beer.”

“You got it,” said the server gratefully, and scurried off.

“Jim knows _everything_ about food,” Christy said, picking up Jim’s hand and beaming at him, hoping to repair some of the damage to his ego.

“Oh, that’s important,” McCoy said dryly. “To know _everything_ about food.”

He sent Christy a challenging look as he drained his glass of bourbon.

A comm unit landed on the table in front of them. McCoy picked up the receiver.

“Yeah?” he asked, still maintaining eye contact with Christy.

“Farragut and Intrepid shuttles are booked, we’re working on the Kobayashi Maru,” Chekov yelled excitedly down the line.”

“Oh, she’s a hell of a reporter, going to get a Pulitzer,” McCoy replied conversationally, smiling at Christy. “We’re talking about Gaila,” he told her.

“What are you talking about Gaila for?” asked Chekov, confused. “I’m telling you about the shuttle tickets!”

“Well, she’s doing a great job,” McCoy continued, regardless of Chekov’s confusion. “She gets over four hundred fan letters a week, with marriage proposals. What? She’s got a headache? Tell her to eat a sandwich and keep at it!”

He slammed the comm unit down with a satisfied thud. Back at the office, Chekov got an even more junior intern to messenger a chicken salad sandwich over to Gaila without understanding why.

“So,” Christy said frostily. “Gaila’s filling my shoes, huh?”

McCoy leaned back in his seat and grinned at her.

“Now that you mention it, yes,” he told her pleasantly.

Christy slammed her hand down on the table in anger.

“That airhead couldn’t fill my shoes with an extra pair of feet!” she snapped.

“Right now, that airhead is down at the jail covering the electrocution of Chris Pike,” McCoy told her, eyes gleaming, knowing exactly how much that would annoy his ex-wife.

“Chris Pike? Who’s Chris Pike?” asked Jim.

Christy and McCoy turned to him, mouths open in astonishment.

“You don’t know who Chris Pike is?” they demanded simultaneously. Christy stared at her fiancé. She had never been in a relationship with anybody so clueless about current events.

“He’s been in the news for the past month!” McCoy went on in disbelief.

Jim shrugged, unconcerned. “He’s not been in the business section.”

Christy leaned forward across the small table.

“A man is about to die for a crime that he should have committed,” she told him seriously.

“Should have committed?” Jim frowned.

“Christopher Pike’s seven year old son was killed deliberately by a Klingon who was trying to create trouble on a contested border outpost. In a fit of rage, Pike killed the Klingon. At any other time, he would have been found guilty of manslaughter due to extreme mental trauma, but because the outpost planet is now Klingon territory, they’re demanding the death penalty,” Christy spit. “Pike dies tonight at 12.01.”

“Can’t anything be done?” Jim, said, horrified.

Christy slammed her hand down on the table. “That’s the problem! Although the Federation Court had to uphold the Klingon sentence, there’s a legal loophole that says the State Governor can pardon any prisoner condemned to die in this state. They forgot about it because it’s been so long since the death penalty was abolished on Earth.”

“Except our Governor is running against one of the attorneys the Klingons hired to fight their case,” McCoy said, a bitter look on his face.

“Harry Mudd is too scared to go to the bathroom without polling data to advise him,” Christy sneered. “There’s no way he’ll pardon Pike.”

“Can’t somebody try to convince the Governor to issue a pardon?” Jim asked.

Christy shook her head, but McCoy nodded.

“Sure,” he said. “I could fire that hack Gaila, and your fiancée here could do one last interview.”

“Oh no,” Christy started, shaking her head, but McCoy spoke over her.

“And maybe, just maybe, it would be so touching, that the Governor would change his mind.”

“Oh, come off it,” she sighed, but McCoy wasn’t one to back off easily.

“I know, I know, it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to postpone your wedding trip just because it might save a man’s life,” he said earnestly.

Christy shook her head in disbelief, but McCoy was a master at the art of manipulation.

“Could Christy interviewing Christopher Pike really change the Governor’s mind?” Jim asked.

 

“Yes!” McCoy said, just as Christy said “A thousand to one!”

“Ten to one,” McCoy countered, amending it to twelve to one after a particularly hard glare from Christy.

“Well, I think you’ve got to do it honey,” Jim said decisively. “The least we could do is get a later shuttle.”

“Wait a minute!” Christy snapped. “Don’t you see what he’s doing? He doesn’t care about Pike! He just wants a hot lead for the six o’clock!”

“Sweetheart, if it could save a man’s life…,” Jim pleaded.

Christy sighed, staring at Jim with soft eyes.

“You see what I’m marrying?” she asked McCoy. “A _decent_ human being.”

McCoy glared at them as Jim extended a hand across the table and stroked her thumb gently with his.

“It’s a weird adjustment,” Christy finished. “You really want me to do it, darling?”

“Yes,” said both men firmly.

Both Jim and Christy stared at McCoy, annoyed.

“I’ve got to stop doing that. _Me_ McCoy, _he_ darling,” sighed McCoy.

“Honey, I would never forgive myself if I didn’t let you at least try,” Jim said earnestly.  
Somewhere, at the back of her brain, Christy made a mental note of the ”let you try” as McCoy assured Jim that it would take an hour, two at the most. McCoy promised they’d be on a shuttle by seven o’clock.

“I’ll do the interview on one condition McCoy,” Christy said decisively as their meals were served. Jim looked aghast at his special, never before witnessing food that had been thrown onto a plate in such a haphazard way before.

“Oh?” McCoy asked, fork halfway to mouth.

“SNN needs a gym,” Christy said decisively. “A state of the art, modern gym with the finest Kirk equipment, I think. Running machines, zero-g climbing walls…,”

“Vibrating power plates, abdominal toning systems…” Jim continued, grinning.

“That sounds expensive,” McCoy grumbled.

“Two hundred thousand,” Jim agreed.

“I don’t suppose you do discounts?” McCoy tried.

“Never,” said Jim happily.

“You fill out the order form and I’ll do the interview,” Christy grinned.

McCoy sighed. “OK, where do I sign?”

“Excellent! Thank you very much!” Jim pumped McCoy’s hand enthusiastically.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” McCoy barked at Christy. “Put down that sausage and get over to the jail!”

“I’ll see you back at the office in an hour!” Jim called as Christy gathered up her belongings.

“Great to have you back,” McCoy winked and dropped a kiss onto the top of her hand.

“Don’t forget Jim, he pays!” Christy called as she raced from the restaurant, her cheeks flushed pink. She had spent the last three weeks contorting herself into every known position in the Kama Sutra with Jim; why did one small kiss, on her _hand_ of all places, from her ex-husband send her into such a tizzy?


	5. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 2793 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

The security team at the jail knew Christy by sight, and greeted her cheerfully. However, her way into the prison didn’t just depend on Jasper and Bob. She had to get past Warden Ayel first.

“Absolutely not!” he bristled. “If I let you in for an interview, Miss Chapel, I’d have to let every other journalist in as well!”

“Oh, I’m sure you could find room for me,” Christy said confidently. “After all, Warden. I know so much about _you_.”

The Warden stared at her, outraged.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” he blustered.

“I’m talking about you charging prisoners two hundred credits for the privilege of conjugal visits in the privacy of your own office,” she announced loudly.

Ayel hushed her frantically, grabbing her arm and steering away from the crowd of people that had begun to gather around them.

“It’s going to be the lead feature on our new ten part report into the running of modern prison facilities,” Christy said, smiling sweetly.

“You can’t!” Ayel pleaded.

“Watch me,” Christy told him firmly. There was a brief staring match, but Christy had been married to McCoy. The sweating, nervous prison warden was no competition.

“Fine,” Ayel ground out. “Half an hour.”

“You won’t even know I’m here!” Christy called back as she and her team hustled into the building.

Sitting at his desk, McCoy sighed in irritation as he perused the contract that Kirk had out in front of him. The catwalk model-cum-CEO was lounging on the couch, talking happily with his assistant over his comm link.

“Oh yeah, a killer deal,” Kirk said happily. “The full works. Did you set the acquisition of Decker into motion?”

He started babbling astronomical numbers at the assistant on the end of the link, who seemed to please Kirk by babbling numbers back at him.

McCoy stared at the PADD in front of him, and tried to put his thumbprint on the contract. It failed to record three times, and he growled as he threw it down on the desk.

“There’s another contract in my briefcase,” Kirk called helpfully.

McCoy rooted around in the open case for another contract PADD, but his attention was drawn to one that proudly proclaimed itself to be the best self-help guide for those suffering from acrophobia – the fear of heights.

McCoy snuck a quick look over at Kirk, but he was happily talking away to his assistant. Heights, eh? There had to be a way he could use that.

“What, really?” Kirk said loudly, in disbelief. “All of them?”

McCoy smirked. You had to hand it to Chekov, when you gave the boy a job he did it well.

“Oh well, never mind. Let’s go to Plan B,” Kirk said. “I think it’s more romantic, anyway.”

“Romantic?” said McCoy, his ears pricking up. “What’s romantic?”

Kirk paused, and looked over to him.

“Can you believe it, all the shuttles to New York have been booked up for the next twenty four hours! We’re going to have to go by train instead.”

“Train?” asked McCoy, a feeling of dread starting in his stomach.

“There’s nothing more romantic than a cross-country train ride,” said Kirk happily, then he got back on the comm link to his assistant.

McCoy picked up his own comm unit.

“Chekov?” he barked into the receiver.

“What?” came Chekov’s husky voice. He sounded exhausted. “McCoy, we’ve booked every shuttle from San Francisco to New York solid for the next twenty four hours.”

“Well done, you can take a break,” McCoy told him.

“Really?” said Chekov in disbelief.

“Sure,” McCoy replied. He paused for a few seconds. “Did you enjoy it?”

Chekov made an exasperated noise that sounded painful.

“I want you to book every ticket on every train going to New York in the next twenty four hours!”

“What! McCoy….”

McCoy put the comm unit down with a click, just as Kirk finished his call.

“I really want to go all out,” Kirk said decisively, peering at his reflection in a travel mirror. “Caviar, champagne, silver candlesticks. Hey, McCoy, do you know where I can get any?”

“Silver candlesticks? Sure,” McCoy said expansively. He picked up the comm. unit again. “Oh Chekov, I need you,” he sang before putting the receiver down again firmly. As soon as it was down, it chirruped for his attention. It was Christy, calling from the prison.

“Have you done it?” McCoy demanded.

“Hold on McCoy, I’m not doing anything until I know that you’ve signed the contract,” she said firmly. “Put Jim on.”

“I’ve signed it!” McCoy protested, but Christy wasn’t to be moved. Sighing, McCoy handed the receiver over to Kirk.

“He’s signed it, darling,” Kirk said, glancing over the PADD McCoy had shoved ungracefully in his direction.

“With his own name? He once signed a reporter’s contract as Peter Rabbit,” Christy asked, her  
voice full of suspicion.

“It’s fine,” Kirk reassured her.

“It’s not dated 2053?”

“Darling, stop worrying. Just go and interview that poor man and help to save his life. Yes, I love you too. Bye, darling.”

Kirk ended the call and tossed the receiver back to McCoy.

“Christy’s wonderful,” he enthused. “So worried about my business. Marrying her is going to be like gaining another arm, or a leg.”

“Make sure you tell her that,” McCoy replied, his face admirably straight. “She’ll love it.”

Kirk wandered into the bathroom attached to McCoy’s office and started to preen in the mirror.

“I can get champagne and caviar delivered directly to the station,” Kirk said decisively. “Or Rand can, anyway, in time for the eight o’clock train.”

McCoy paused in his quick check of the viewscreens on the wall. Eight o’clock? That sounded awfully specific. He felt his heart begin to sink into his stomach. Surely not…

“You’ve got the tickets?” McCoy demanded. “You didn’t tell me you had the tickets already!”

“I didn’t think it was necessary,” said Kirk bewildered.

McCoy picked up the receiver again.

“Chekov! Cancel the thing I just told you to do! And why aren’t you over here yet?”

Chekov’s angry squawk could be heard clearly over the line. McCoy peered out of his window down towards the communications area of the bullpen. His staff was currently showing their displeasure with his bizarre and contradictory requests, some of them with clear and concise hand gestures. He knew he was going to have to approve an awful lot of expense requests to make up for today, but it would be worth it to keep Christy in San Francisco where she belonged, with him.

Seconds later, the door opened and Chekov burst through it.

“Boss?” he asked, his voice still husky.

“Take Mr Kirk shopping,” McCoy ordered, hustling them both out of his office. “Take him to the silver store.”

“The silver store?” Chekov asked, puzzled. “Which silver store?”

“The one at the top of the Transbay Transit Tower,” McCoy said firmly.

“I didn’t know there were stores at the top of the Tower,” Chekov said, still lost at sea.

“There aren’t,” McCoy said helpfully. “Have fun!”

He continued to walk a confused Chekov and oblivious Kirk down the corridor towards Keenser’s front desk.

“Can I ask you a question?” McCoy said to Kirk. “It’s a little personal.”

“Sure!” said Kirk, affably.

“Do you streak your hair?”

“Oh yeah,” Kirk said confidently. “It took forever to find just the right shade. I used to use Burnished Peaches, but I found it a little brassy. This is Mellow Coppertone. I think it works.”

“Oh, it works for me,” McCoy said sincerely. He waved them off at the front desk, then picked up the comm unit at Keenser’s desk.

“Receiving? This is McCoy. In about a week’s time we’re going to receive a consignment from Kirk Industries. I want you to take out a couple of exercise bikes, hit them with a hammer and send them all back as damaged goods.”

McCoy replaced the comm unit, unbelievably pleased with himself.

“Keenser, if that dildo ever shows up here again, I want you to give him a full cavity search,” McCoy ordered. Keenser chuckled evilly. He was very fond of Christy, and it was clear that Kirk was not the right sort of man for her. He saluted McCoy, and went back to lurking behind the desk, waiting for his chance.

 

At the jail, Christy sat in the prison’s waiting room for Christopher Pike to be brought out to her. The building was old, and despite some modern upgrades to the security systems, it still bore relics of its ancient past including clanging cell doors, barred and locked with old fashioned metal keys. Pike was being housed in the section of the prison once known as Death Row. As the number of people in jail was a fraction of what it once had been, and considering that nobody was given the death penalty on Earth any more, this section of the building had largely been abandoned.

He was brought out from behind a locked door by several burly prison guards. Christy had seen pictures and video of Pike before his son was killed; he had been a tall, vital man, the sort that would have been at home on a frontier outpost. Now, as he shuffled in, his head bowed, he looked like a shadow of his former self.

“It’s good to see you, Christopher,” Christy said softly as her camera crew fussed with the lighting and sound requirements. A brief smile flashed over Pike’s face.

“I’m glad you’re here, Miss Chapel,” Pike said quietly, but sincerely. “You’ve been the only person who’s been kind to me. You and Number One, of course.”

“Your lawyer?” Christy clarified for the people who would be watching this at home.

“My first lawyer, and the only one that’s stuck by me. She was on the outpost too, and has been fighting for me for all this time. That’s my nickname for her. Number One.”

Pike reached out across the table and touched Christy’s hand. The sudden movement caused the prison guards to lurch forwards, but Christy waved them off irritably.

“You will look after her, wont you, Miss Chapel? Once I’m…gone? She has nobody else, and I hate to think of her all alone.”

Tears formed in Christy’s eyes. Here he was, a man who had lost everything, about to lose his own life, and he was worried about how his lawyer would cope.

“I will,” she promised, realising as soon as the words had left her mouth that she had no way to do that. She’d be in New York, sitting on a sofa with the latest teeny-bopping sensation desperate to plug a movie, and Number One would be in San Francisco, burying Pike.

Acid burned in her stomach, making her feel queasy.

“This will be your last interview, Mr Pike,” she said softly. “Will you tell the public why you ended up here?”

Pike looked directly into the camera.

“My son, my seven year old son, Billy was a good boy. He liked riding his bicycle, playing soccer and birds. He wanted to be an ornithologist when he grew up. He loved the outpost because of the birds that would fly down from the mountains. He used to sit in the back garden with his PADD and film their flight patterns. He used to fall asleep listening to recordings of birds from Earth.

One day Billy went riding into town and he left his comm link behind. When the news of the Klingon ship in orbit hit the outpost, there was no way to reach him. Most people had barricaded themselves into their houses. He was the only person in the street when that Klingon scum beamed down.”

Pike broke off, emotion thickening his voice.

“Go on, Christopher,” Christy said gently. “What happened next?”

“I was running after him,” Pike explained, his voice wobbling with grief. “I got to the main street to see that Klingon deliberately take aim and fire at him as he tried to run away. He hit a seven year old child in the back with a phased plasma pulse. When I got to his body…there were _holes_ in it, Miss Chapel, _holes_. His face was scrunched up in pain, and his body smelled of charred flesh.”

This time, Christy was the one to hold Pike’s hand.

“That’s when you attacked him?” she asked.

“Damn right I did,” Pike said, his voice bitter. “I did what anybody else would have done, when they saw their child get murdered. I’d do it again too. I’m not sorry, Miss Chapel, I’m not.”

Christy tightened her grip on Pike’s hand, and said nothing. There was nothing to say. There was silence for a moment, before Pike swiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his prison shirt.

“Billy loved magic tricks,” he said eventually. “So I learned some, just for him. Do you know what today is, Miss Chapel? It’s Houdini’s birthday.”

“Is there a trick you could do for us, Christopher?” Christy asked, her voice brimming with emotion.

“One of Billy’s favourites,” Pike said at last. He leaned forward and snatched a PADD stylus from the pocket of Christy’s jacket. He held it up for the camera to see, then closed his palm over it. He opened his hand up, and it had disappeared. Pike leaned forward again, put his hand next to Christy’s head, and made the pen look as if it had sprang from her ear.

“That’s wonderful, Christopher!” Christy said, smiling. “Houdini would be proud.”

“Not even Houdini could get out of this place,” Pike said sadly, and Christy let the camera linger on his broken expression.

One of the guards made a ‘wrap it up’ gesture, and Christy ended the interview. She said what she was sure was her last goodbye to the sad man, and walked out of the room, followed by her camera crew. Blinking back tears, she fished out a pocket PADD to make a few notes for her piece to camera but no matter how hard she pressed the stylus n the screen nothing happened.

“Look,” she said in puzzlement to her camera guy. “The nib has gone.”

Back in his cell, away from the prying eyes of the prison guards, Pike pulled the flexible plastic strip that made up the sensitive nib of the stylus from the space between his cheek and his gum. Maybe Houdini _couldn’t_ break out of this prison, but it didn’t mean that Christopher Pike wasn’t going to try.

“Here we are,” said Chekov nervously. “The Transbay Tower.”

Kirk stopped dead outside the building and craned his head back to fully take in the enormity of the glass and steel structure. He visibly paled, and sweat broke out on his perfect brow. His skin took on an unhealthy green sheen.

“Where is it? Which floor?”

“The top one!” Chekov said brightly. “Come along, Mr Kirk.”

“Uh, tell you what, why don’t you go and pick some candlesticks out for me?” Kirk muttered, thrusting a credit card at Chekov with a shaking hand. “Nothing too fancy, don’t go over two thousand.”

“Oh, I can’t,” Chekov said, dismayed. “They have retinal scans, to prevent fraud. Besides, don’t you want to pick them out yourself?”

Kirk dragged the back of his hand across his forehead.

“Sure,” he said weakly.

Chekov led the way over to a bank of elevators and held the door for Kirk, who was hovering nervously about the edge.

“This way,” Chekov gestured.

Kirk steeled himself to enter the box, made entirely of strengthened, clear plastic composite. Chekov hit the button for the top floor, but as soon as the lift moved smoothly upwards, Kirk clutched the balustrade with a death grip and began to babble under his breath.

“You can do it, you can do it, you can do it,” he muttered, sweating heavily and trembling.

“Uh, Mr Kirk? Are you OK?” ventured Chekov, concerned.

Kirk began to whine helplessly.

“Make it stop, make it stop!” he begged.

“Make what stop?” asked Chekov, still completely confused by Jim’s _volte face_ from ‘suave and sophisticated’ into ‘gibbering wreck’.

Jim looked wildly about the compartment and then lurched for the control panel, slamming his hand on the emergency stop button. The lift slammed to halt, throwing Chekov and Kirk to the ground. Kirk immediately grabbed onto the balustrade, extended a leg so he could keep his foot firmly on the ‘stop’ button and started to sob for his mother.

A flabbergasted Chekov made a note to fiddle his expenses for a _month_ when he got back to the office. Sighing, he fished his comm unit out of his pocket and called the one person he knew who could sort this mess out.


	6. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 2852 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

Outside the jail, a collection of news vans and trailers had formed from rival news broadcasters. In his Spartan trailer Spock, of the Vulcan News Channel, was running over the English pronunciation of words that did not translate easily from Vulcan. Sulu from Channel Eight was flicking through the latest edition of Botanical Enthusiast Monthly, while Scott from the British Broadcasting Corporation was smoothly putting the moves on an enthusiastic Gaila in the privacy of his trailer.

He was just about to let his lips descend the final millimetres to Gaila’s luscious red mouth when he noticed, from the corner of his eye, the gates to the jail opening.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, completely ruining the romantic ambiance he had spent the last half-hour creating. “What’s she doing here?”

He ran from his trailer, gaining the attention of Spock and Sulu, who followed behind him.

“Christy!” he called loudly. “What the hell were you doing in there?”

“You can find out at six o’clock like everybody else, Scotty,” she replied, winking at him.

She didn’t slow down as she headed away from the jail and through a small park towards the nearby City Press Room. Her camera crew would transfer the interview to a suitable digital form, correcting for imbalance in light and sound inside the old building. She’d spend the next hour writing up her notes for Starfleet News Network’s web news page over at the City Press Room. She could have done it back at the office, but some sense of nostalgia led her towards the room for one last time.

“You cannot have achieved anything inside the jail,” Spock said gravely. “It is illogical to believe that the Warden would have granted you an interview if we were not also given access to Christopher Pike.”

“If it makes you happy to believe that Spock, then that’s the truth,” Christy said, her tone teasing.

“Happiness is not logical,” Spock intoned, the teasing being old and familiar. So familiar, that Sulu and Scotty were mouthing his words behind him,

Christy just smiled and quickened her pace as she headed towards the old building. The three men that were dogging her steps paused.

“She hasn’t got anything,” Sulu said decisively. “I’m going back to my trailer.”

“I concur,” Spock replied.

“Yeah,” Scotty nodded.

There was a pause for the briefest of seconds before all men took off at a run after Christy.

They dogged her footsteps into the City Hall building, all the way up the marble staircases and into the busy City Press room. Representatives of all the major news organisations used the facilities here, and the room was full of people frantically typing, making comm calls and just trying to out-talk each other. In the centre of the room was Nyota Uhura, the unchallenged leader of the room. All calls were routed through her board, and she gave out potential leads to the reporters that she liked. Everyone knew that she had a soft spot for the taciturn Vulcan, and his scoop rate had risen exponentially since visiting the room. There was a book running on whether they were actually sleeping together or not; Christy had met Nyota coming out of her gynaecologist’s office one afternoon, and immediately put her money on ‘established sexual relationship’. Time would only tell, but she was planning to use her winnings on a major shoe splurge.

Not that she’d be around to win that bet any longer, she realised as she found her old desk, as yet unassigned to a new journalist. She set up her PADD and began to write furiously, trying to block out the deep pangs of regret that were already invading her mind.

Sulu, Spock and Scotty burst into the room, although Spock immediately slowed to a graceful walk. Out of the corner of her eye Christy saw him bow regally to Uhura, who smiled and returned the nod.

 _Oh yeah,_ Christy thought smugly to herself. _They are so doing it._

Sulu and Scotty zeroed in on her immediately and started to peek at her PADD.

“Hey!” she snapped at them, pulling it close to her chest. “Get your own story.”

“So,” Scotty said cheerfully, settling himself on the desk next to Christy’s. “Who’s going to the post-electrocution party?”

“Jesus Scotty, you’re sick,” complained Christy.

In the noise of the press room, nobody heard the door open to admit a tall, slender dark-haired woman.

“The least they could do is change the time,” complained Sulu. “Nobody watches tv at 12:14.”

“I thought it was scheduled for 12:01?” Christy said, peering at her PADD as she tried to get her phrasing right.

“Ten minutes to fry him, three to get on the air,” Scotty replied prosaically.

“I don’t believe you people,” the woman at the back of the room said suddenly, stepping forward as she hissed her fury at the news reporters. “You have no feelings, no morals, not a shred of integrity!”

“Oh no,” Scotty groaned, moving away.

“You just sit around making jokes, while an undeserving man gets electrocuted!”

“He’s not undeserving; you lost the case, remember?” Sulu snapped, irritated. “And the appeals. Give it up. You lost.”

“He killed the murderer of his _child_ ,” pleaded Pike’s lawyer. “And if you weren’t all so busy correcting your eyeliner, you’d have reported that fact.”

Sulu paused in his inspection of his face in the pocket mirror he always carried with him. He had the grace to look slightly abashed.

“But no, all you cared about was how much Chris was going to get for the tv rights, and if I was going to write a book,” the lawyer went on, her voice becoming raised and even more angry than before. “I’m amazed that you didn’t ask if we were sleeping together!”

The entire room paused in sudden silence.

“Were you?” asked Uhura.

“No!” exploded the lawyer. All around the room disappointed journalists got back to the important business of ignoring her.

“We usually save that question for Presidential candidates,” muttered Christy, still typing.

“A decent man is going to die,” the lawyer spat out, tears starting to fall down her face. “And you’re going to do nothing to prevent it.”

It suddenly became very hard for any of the hardened journalists to look her in the eye. The crying woman turned away, unwilling to let her tears become entertainment for the room. Christy moved towards her, but the lawyer brushed her hands off angrily and stormed out of the room. It had become so quiet that the sound of the woman’s heels stumbling down the hall was audible to everybody.

A comm unit on Uhura’s desk buzzed, and she picked it up. After listening for a moment, she extended it to Christy.

“For you,” she said.

Christy picked up the extension on her desk, turning away from the crowd in an attempt for privacy. As soon as her back was turned, everybody else with access to a comm unit picked up as well.

There are no such things as secrets in a room full of journalists.

“Yes? Chekov, what the hell are you doing there?” Christy asked, puzzled.

Around the room, puzzled journalists tried to figure out what was going on.

“What?” Christy screamed into the comm unit.

“He won’t let go,” Chekov explained, sounding vaguely terrified and not a little put-upon. “Even the police can’t get him loose. Every time they try to get his foot away from the emergency button, he screams and kicks them.”

“Alright, tell him I’ll be right there,” Christy said hurriedly, and slammed down the comm unit. All around her, the rest of the room also slammed theirs down.

Christy stared at them in disbelief as they gave her their best innocent looks. Maybe there were some parts of her life that she wouldn’t miss, she thought sourly, as she hustled from the room to coax her fiancé out of an elevator.

At SNN, McCoy was pacing frantically in the bullpen, being of the opinion that if he was tense and irritated, his staff could damn well be tense and irritated too. He had his eye on the large clock on the wall; it was getting dangerously close to air time, and if he was going to preview the tape then Christy had better get back here very soon.

“Where is she?” he snapped.

“I had her leaving the press room twenty minutes ago,” one of his staff called, comm unit glued to his ear. “But nobody knows where she went.”

“McCoy,” hissed another one of his team. “Archer’s here. In your office.”

“Oh shit,” McCoy sighed. With one last pleading look at the door, he climbed the stairs to his office. He headed straight for the corner of the room that contained all the alcohol, and started to make a mint julep. For Archer he just poured the bourbon straight into the glass.

“McCoy, we need more fires,” Archer said, while perusing the busy bullpen through the large window.

“You got a problem, Jon?” McCoy asked.

“Nothing a little visual action can’t cure. _Family_ visual action,” he warned. “No smut. Too much smut on this station, not enough fires.”

“Everyday I’ve got a unit going all over the alpha quadrant looking for smutless fires,” McCoy sighed as he settled into the chair behind his desk.

“You didn’t have one Thursday,” grumbled Archer, taking a hefty swig of his drink, then refilling the glass.

“Oh Jesus,” McCoy sighed, getting ready for round six hundred of a never-ending battle between himself, a news professional, and the station owner, a strange man with a pyromania fixation. “On Andoria and Betazed they do not care about a San Francisco fire.”

“It’s been proved McCoy, people will watch re-created murders and fires more than anything else in the universe, except maybe a war that isn’t too boring.”

“Oh yeah, those boring wars really cut into the ratings,” McCoy sighed, snagging the bottle from his boss and sloshing more into his own glass.

“Oh, don’t get sarcastic with me now McCoy. You’re a good newsman, but you’ve got contempt for the public. And your features are running too long. Anything over a minute and you can hear channels being switched all over the planet.”

They both took silent, appreciative sips of their drinks.

“Come on McCoy,” Archer said eventually. “You got a fire for me tonight?”

“I got something better,” McCoy grinned.

At the Transbay Tower, an elevator door opened on the sixtieth floor and Christy rushed out.

“Christy!” Chekov called, thankfully.

“What’s he doing up here?” she demanded, watching in horror as her handsome, manly fiancé was snarling at police officers from his prone position on the floor of the elevator.

“McCoy told me to take him to a silver store at the top of the Tower, but it turns out there’s only offices up here!” Chekov said, still confused. By the narrowing of Christy’s eyes, she had figured it out. Chekov gulped, and was very glad that he was not McCoy right now, or in the ten minutes after they arrived back at SNN.

“Jim!” Christy called, wriggling through the police cordon to comfort her fiancé, who was muttering, “I’ll sue, I’ll sue” under his breath.

“Jim, please, honey,” she continued. “It’s me, it’s ok. How are you?”

Jim’s already firm grip on the balustrade increased.

“I’m not moving. They want me to move, but I’m not moving. No way.” Jim was red-faced and nearly incomprehensible. His foot was planted firmly on the emergency stop button and he was looking suspiciously at the hapless police officers who had been trying to convince him it was safe to move.

“Alright, listen,” Christy said quickly. “What if I was to take off all my clothes, and slip out of my stockings...”

Jim’s eyes, which had been firmly glued at the floor sixty stories below him, began to slide towards Christy.

“...so I was just in my underwear? And you could tear that off with your teeth?”

Jim shifted, letting go of the balustrade. Christy quickly whipped a hand over his eyes, pushed his foot downwards and hit the button for the ground floor. She pounced on him, kissing him so he wouldn’t focus on the moving of the elevator. Chekov and the police officers averted their eyes.

The elevator reached the ground floor, and the doors slid open to reveal a crowd of annoyed on-lookers who had been delayed by Jim’s panic attack. They looked surprised to see a couple passionately kissing each other on the floor of the elevator.

“It worked on the shuttle,” Christy explained as she and Chekov hauled a confused Jim to his feet and hustled him out of the building.

“We’ve got fifteen minutes to air!” Chekov yelled as they headed for the news van that had brought Christy to the Transbay Towers.

 

“Ten minutes to air!” McCoy yelled in the middle of the bullpen. “Where is she?”

 

“Come on guys!” Christy yelled as she jumped out of the news van. “Come on! Move it!”  
Her news team scrambled after her, knocking Jim to the side in the process.

“Take it to editing!” yelled the camera guy, throwing the tape to the sound man.

“No, you take it!” the sound guy returned, lobbing it back to him.

“I’ll take it!” shouted Christy, snatching it out of the air. “No time to edit!”

They entered the building at a flat-out run, barrelling down the corridors. Keenser looked up from his desk, nodded at them, and went back to his magazine.

“Wait, I forgot. You take it,” Christy said, throwing it to the camera guy. “I have to deal with McCoy.”

 

Walking patiently behind them, Kirk entered the front lobby. He made to follow them down the corridor, but a firm tug at his suit jacket made him halt. Keenser stared at him, pointing to a sign that read “All members of the public will be searched before entering the premises.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Kirk said, annoyed, breaking free of the little alien’s grip. He managed three steps down the corridor before Keenser, howling a battle cry, took his legs out from under him.

 

“Where’s Jim?” Christy yelled, screeching to a halt in the bullpen.

“You’ll miss the lead, Christy,” warned her sound guy. Christy hesitated for a moment, but carried on running. Jim was a big boy. He could walk down a corridor by himself.

“Christy, where the hell have you been?” McCoy snapped, striding towards her. “You got the tape? It’s the lead.”

“They’re racking it up now, you bastard,” she snarled. “How the hell could you do that to Jim?”

“Jim? Jim who?” McCoy said airily.

“You...!” Christy started, but McCoy had dashed off towards the anchor desks.

“Guys, it’s thirty seconds to air!” called a worried Chekov, stepping back as Christy chased McCoy, hell-bent on punching him right in the face.

“How could you send him up in a glass elevator?” she screamed. “You know he’s afraid of heights!”

“How could I know he’s afraid of heights?” McCoy yelled back. “He’s so tall!”

Christy screamed with rage, drew back her fist and let fly. McCoy ducked, and the blow connected with Chekov, who managed to groan out “What’s the lead?” before staggering backwards.

“What’s the lead, Christy?” McCoy yelled, dodging in front of the anchor desk.

“The lead is ‘former reporter slays ex-husband in TV studio’”, Christy spat out, climbing on top of the anchor desk in an attempt to punch McCoy again.

“Twenty seconds!” squealed Chekov, catching Christy’s second blow of the day.

“How’s the language?” taunted McCoy.

“When have I ever used bad language, you rotten son of a bitch?” yelled Christy.

“Ten seconds!” Chekov informed them, then retreated to a safe distance.

“Go with it!” McCoy informed him, walking backwards so he was placed between the two cameras that would be broadcasting the show in a few seconds time.

“I have seen some lowlifes - in this business you see them all. The pimps, the axe-murderers, the rapists, the drug-pushers, the child-molesters,” Christy hissed, her face contorted with rage.

By now she was kneeling on the anchor desk, right next to her worried-co host. She had forgotten that she was about to be broadcast live around the galaxy; all she was intent on doing was giving McCoy a piece of her mind.

“But you – you are the worst. You are a ruthless, amoral, manipulative...,”

McCoy simply smiled as he counted down the seconds to air, blowing her a kiss on ‘one’.

“...bullying _asshole_....

As the lights on the camera blinked on, Christy remembered where she was, and exactly how much leg she was showing to the universe while perched on the anchor desk.

“Good evening,” she managed. “This is Christy Chapel with the SNN award-winning evening news.”

“And this is Geoffrey M’Benga,” intoned her co-host.

As the familiar music began, McCoy grabbed a PADD from Chekov, who was rubbing his face.

“I’m going to miss her,” Chekov confided.

“She’s not gone yet,” McCoy muttered, holding up the PADD with “exclusive” written on it for Christy to read.


	7. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 3068 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

“In an exclusive interview, the first since his appeal was denied, Klingon-killer dad Christopher Pike talked to me about that tragic day on the outpost, when his seven year old son was gunned down by a merciless Klingon warrior.”

Christy delivered the introduction to camera, and then the interview, unedited and unchecked, went public across the galaxy.

The bullpen went silent as the entire staff watched the tape of the interview with Pike. When the camera cut back to Christy and M’Benga, she was visibly shaken. Ignoring the autocue and its frantic operator, she looked directly down the lens of the camera and spoke to the one person who had the power to stop the planned execution.

“A journalist is supposed to be objective,” she began. “But there are some things in life more important than journalism. Since this is my final story for SNN I can afford to lay it on the line. Christopher Pike should not be executed. He is being used as a political ping-pong ball by a creep of a Federation Council attorney and a weakling of a governor. What this state needs is a chief executive with the guts to forgive, not just a macho hard-ass because his polls tell him to be. Are you watching, Mudd? You’ve got six hours, Governor. If you pardon Christopher Pike, you may well lose the election, but you might just regain your conscience.”

She paused for breath, tears now trickling unashamedly down her cheek.

“This is Christy Chapel, formerly of Starfleet News Network.”

She got up and left the anchor desk, abandoning M’Benga to manage the rest of the broadcast alone.

McCoy raced over to the water fountain where Christy was sipping from a cup, trying to regain her composure.

“Christy! That was beautiful!” he enthused, taking her in his arms and squeezing her tightly. “Hard ass creep. It was inspired! Of course, we may lose our license...hah!”

McCoy pulled her in for another tight hug and swung her around. Christy breathed in the scent of him and felt her knees tremble slightly. She was going to miss him, she realised. Far more than you should miss your ex-husband. When she felt him start to release her she tightened her grip around his neck. McCoy’s arms held her closer, and she could almost feel time stop.

Until Jim’s voice could be heard across the bullpen.

“Christy!” he said, aggrieved at seeing his fiancée looking very happy in her ex-husband’s arms.

“Jim!” she called, detaching herself from McCoy, looking slightly embarrassed. McCoy, she noted, was smirking. “Jim, did you see it? Did you?”

“No,” he said, visibly upset. “No, I did not. I couldn’t get through security. That...little man frisked me.”

Christy looked him up and down, and took in the dishevelled hair, the untidy clothes and the bruises forming on his skin. She turned to McCoy.

“I’m going to kill you,” she told him seriously.

“Who me?” he asked, innocently.

“Boss!” hissed Chekov, who was clutching a comm link. “It’s Archer!”

“Yeah?” snapped McCoy, picking up the receiver. He listened for a few moments, raising his eyebrow.

“What the hell did you expect her to say? The _alleged_ creep? He is a creep!”

There was another pause.

“Of course I screened the tape before I ran it!” lied McCoy.

He listened again, sighed, and replaced the comm link. He walked solemnly over to Christy, and took her hand.

“Mr Archer objects to the word ‘ass’,” he said with a completely straight face. “He finds it...smutty.”

Christy stared at him in shock.

“That’s all he got from it?” she spluttered.

McCoy nodded, and then everyone burst out laughing. Everyone, that is, except Jim.

Across San Francisco, in his campaign headquarters, Nero was watching the interview and its aftermath unfold on the vid screen in horror. There was no way that the Governor was going to be able to go ahead with the execution now, especially after Chapel’s on-air tirade; he’d pardon Pike, and win the support of all the electorate who were no doubt besieging the governor’s comm lines in their thousands. Nero snarled, then picked up a box of commemorative ‘Nero for Governor’ badges and threw it straight into the vid screen.

His very narrow majority was down to the fact that he was on the side of law and order; although he couldn’t give a damn about Klingon territorial rights, there was a sub-set of the population that believed that although barbaric, the Klingons had a legal right to Pike’s death. They were the sort that believed in bigger principles, and that the letter of the law mattered more than the life of one man.

You’ve got to love the do-gooders, Nero had told his cronies, all jockeying for lucrative positions that the new Governor would be able to hand out. Now, it seemed, maybe the do-gooders would be swayed.

“Get me Ayel!” he snapped at an underling, and within seconds a visibly sweating prison warden was on the one remaining vid screen.

“I gave strict instructions that nobody was to interview Pike!” Nero raged.

“She had dirt on me, I had to allow her access,” Ayel whined.

“I don’t care what she had on you!” thundered Nero. “Now that dumb bimbo reporter has just stirred up the idiot voters, Mudd will have to pardon him.”

“I’m sorry,” Ayel started, but Nero cut the link with a vicious stab of his finger on the control panel.

“Ok, ok, let’s think,” he muttered to himself as he paced up and down the room.

At the governor’s mansion, Harry Mudd was, predictably, confused about what he should do.

“We’ve been discussing this for months,” he told his crowd of hangers on, who all nodded their heads in agreement. “I think I’m going to pardon him.”

He looked at them for their judgement. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

Half of them immediately agreed with him; the other half began to shake their heads and mutter about voting stats.

“I’ve had the comm board take a note of how many people have called since the interview aired, Governor,” said the chief advisor, a slick man in his early forties who did most of the real administration work.

“Oh good,” said Mudd, relieved. “Numbers.”

“We’ve had three thousand people demanding you pardon Pike, and two people wanting him killed,” the advisor noted.

“Then I’ll pardon him,” decided Mudd. “Get me fifteen minutes at eight o’clock.”

He beamed at his advisors, who were looking at each other as if unsure of what to do.

“A great idea, governor, naturally, but could I make a suggestion? Voters get upset when you interrupt their favourite shows. Voters like the news. Fifteen minutes at eleven, governor,” whispered the chief advisor.

“I’ve changed my mind! Fifteen minutes at eleven,” said Mudd firmly.

“Great idea governor!”

“It’s a winning strategy!”

“Actually, I don’t think...”

The one lone voice of dissent was drowned out by a chorus of sycophancy.

“If I’m going to be on television, I need to have a nap,” Mudd declared.

“Yes, and you don’t have much time,” said the chief advisor, pulling a blanket from a cupboard and settling Mudd down like a child on a spare couch.

As the advisor barked orders at the rest of the staff to prepare a speech for the television address, and to inform the local media that the governor wanted time at eleven o’clock, nobody noticed the lone dissenter pick up a comm link and make a private call to the opposition.

Across the city at Nero’s headquarters, he took the news that Mudd was planning to pardon Pike extremely badly. The final damage count was two chairs, the one remaining vid screen and a bottle of Andorian ale that left a nasty blue mark on the carpeting.

“The governor is going to pardon Pike on the eleven o’clock news,” Nero said through clenched teeth. “Do you know what this means?”

His assembled team were too scared to speak.

“It means that if Pike doesn’t fry, then I don’t get elected. And you all are out of a job.”

“What are you going to do?” asked one of the trembling employees.

Nero stared down at his desk for a long moment, then looked back up again, smiling evilly.

“We’re going to kill him anyway,” he announced.

His team looked at him blankly.

“We’re going to move up the execution,” Nero told them, “because of the riots and bomb threats scheduled for midnight. On the advice of Warden Ayel, it is deemed necessary to move the execution up by two hours.”

He stared at one of his team, who began to frantically record his boss’ words on a PADD.

“Don’t you have to get a judge to do that?” asked one of the team nervously.

Nero didn’t bother gracing him with a response.

“How do we keep this from the media?” asked another.

“Who wants to?” returned Nero. “We’ll invite them!”

“ _Invite them to the execution_?” squealed one particularly shocked assistant.

“The first televised execution in history,” smiled Nero. “A sign to our Klingon neighbours  
that we take their legal rights as seriously as we do our own.”

Some of his assistants looked ill at the thought of it, but Nero didn’t pay any attention to them.

“Get down to the prison,” Nero ordered. “Get all the reporters over there by 9:45. Set up some refreshments. The media is going to love me for this!”

 

“I love you, Christy,” McCoy said joyfully, pouring her a refill of her drink. “By tomorrow morning the entire alpha quadrant is going to love you. They’ll name streets after you. They’ll name spaceships after you! Want a drink, Jim?”

Jim peered out from the small bathroom in McCoy’s office, where he was repairing the damage Keenser had done to his appearance.

“No, not for me,” he said shortly.

“The comm desk is lit up like Las Vegas on Christmas Eve!” Chekov called from the doorway.

“Here’s to the greatest news team since Burns and Johnson!” McCoy toasted, clinking his glass against Christy’s.

“Who are they, boss?” asked Chekov as he delivered Jim’s dry-cleaning.

“Never mind, kid,” McCoy smiled as he shook his head. “Let’s see if we made the news!”

He flicked one of the vid screens onto a rival channel in time to hear the anchor announce that San Francisco International Shuttleport had recorded a record number of no-shows on flights to New York. Apparently six thousand, six hundred and thirty people made reservations and failed to show up.

McCoy switched the screen off hastily, but Christy wasn’t fooled.

“The tickets too?” she enquired.

McCoy shrugged his shoulders in his best “I’m completely innocent” expression. Luckily a comm unit beeped, and he dived to get it. He agreed with whatever the caller was demanding, and hung up.

“The governor would like fifteen minutes of our airtime at eleven o’clock tonight,” he informed the room, his eyes twinkling.

The room erupted into cheers.

“He’s going to pardon him!” Christy said happily.

“Why else would he want the time?” McCoy grinned. “You did it, Christy. You did it.”

His arms slipped naturally around her waist and he drew her towards him. She went uncomplaining, the crowded room falling away to leave just herself and McCoy in each other’s arms.

“I’ll say you both did it!” called Archer from the doorway.

“Who’s this?” asked Jim, who had been moving to disentangle Christy and McCoy.

“It’s Jonathan Archer, he owns the network,” explained Christy.

Jim frowned.

“He doesn’t look like the guy from Quantum Leap,” he said.

“You’re fired!” said Archer jovially. “That was great journalism, girl, but did you have to use that word?”

“She’s leaving us, Jon,” McCoy said quietly.

“What?” demanded Archer.

“I’m going to marry this man,” Christy told Archer, linking her arm with Jim’s.

“You can’t marry him, he doesn’t have a job,” Archer said dismissively. “I just fired him!”

“It’s time to go, dear,” said Jim loftily.

The comm unit beeped again. McCoy turned away to answer it.

“Hello? Bomb threats and riots?”

Christy paused as Jim helped her on with her coat.

“What do you mean, a live execution? Who’s running this state?” McCoy was now yelling down the receiver. He slammed it down on his desk, his anger real and unfettered.

“What is it?” Christy asked.

“Nero moved up the execution to ten o’clock,” McCoy said sourly. “He’s invited anybody and everybody with a camera to come and record it for posterity.”

“You’re not really going to do it, are you?” Jim asked, concerned. “Tape Christopher Pike’s execution?”

“Of course we’re going to tape it!” shouted Archer.

“My god, you people have really got a hole in your heart,” said Jim quietly.

“Maybe I won’t have to tape it,” McCoy muttered. He looked at Chekov, who had grabbed a comm unit and was talking to someone on the governor’s staff. Chekov shook his head.

“All the press calls are going through one assistant at the mansion, and he’s insisting the Governor is asleep and can’t be disturbed.”

“You’re really going to film a man dying,” marvelled Jim.

“This is a twenty four hour news station,” shot back McCoy, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

“That’s right,” Christy said, her voice full of anger and betrayal. “And twenty four hours a day, the news is the most important thing in your life, isn’t it? Ahead of people, ahead of principles, ahead of your own love life!”

“And how do you suggest I change that?” shot back McCoy.

“Don’t change, stay just as you are!” yelled Christy.

“We’ve got about two hours to save this man’s life,” shouted McCoy, “So cut the bullshit and go to Nero’s office!”

“We’ve got to get to a train,” interjected Jim, sounding angry.

“You’ll never forgive yourself otherwise,” McCoy finished, staring Christy dead in the eye.

“Oh no, McCoy, that’s not going to work anymore, I don’t buy your...”

“Hey!” shouted Jim. “Time-out! Let’s calm down here. Ok? Calm down. I know this is all very exciting to you, but sweetheart we have to be in New York tomorrow. Janice made all the plans, remember?”

At that precise moment in time, Christy could happily have bludgeoned the efficient Janice Rand to death with her own personalised PADD.

“Yes, I know,” she said eventually.

“And if you want, tomorrow I can have my PR guys write letters to all the major newspapers condemning Christopher Pike’s death as a travesty. But that’s the bottom line.”

Jim had picked up her coat, and was helping her into it, much like a parent dressing a child.

“Sweetheart,” he said earnestly. “It’s not your life anymore. Remember?”

McCoy watched with a determinedly blank face as Christy agreed with Jim, and gathered the rest of her belongings.

“Well, I have a train to catch,” she said with a hitch in her voice. “I don’t want to miss it.”

She looked pleadingly at McCoy as if she was waiting for him to say something, anything that would stop her getting on that train and marrying Jim Kirk. And the kicker was, McCoy knew just what he _should_ say, what he knew damn well would stop her from going and keep her here, in his arms and his news studio, for the rest of her life.

But he didn’t say it.

Instead, he managed, “See you, kid.”

Chekov and the rest of Christy’s news team looked him with palpable disgust.

“Well, it’s been hot meeting you guys,” said Kirk jovially, smug in the knowledge that he had won. “I always thought that newspaper people were wimps, and flakes and fruitcakes, but you’re alright, McCoy.”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you when I see you,” Christy said, her voice wobbling dangerously.

“Have a good life, Christine,” McCoy answered softly.

The tears bubbled right up in her eyes. He had called her Christine exactly twice in their entire relationship; in the ceremony when they married, and in front of the judge when they divorced. He had called her Christy immediately on her working at SNN, and it had stuck. She had dropped the struggle of trying to remain Christine on air after a week.

Leonard McCoy had made her Christy, and now he was taking it away. That hurt more than just about anything else.

Jim led her away out of the office; the tears in her eyes meant that she had to lean on him for support.

The atmosphere in McCoy’s office plummeted rapidly, and Chekov and the camera team quickly found a reason to be elsewhere. McCoy walked over to the bar and poured himself a very large drink.

Archer, who had watched the goodbyes silently, got up from his chair and appropriated the bourbon bottle from McCoy’s hand.

“Forget about the girl. Get the story,” he advised.

“The girl _is_ the story,” McCoy said bitterly. He put his glass down on the bar and picked up a photograph frame that had stood on his shelf for years. It showed a selection of honeymoon pictures of himself and Christy, including one of her standing dangerously close to the lava flow. He had never taken it down, even after the divorce. Why should he? It wasn’t as if the divorce _meant_ anything. It was her way of saying that she was pissed with him, and he supposed that she had every right to feel like that. He did, _occasionally_ , put his job ahead of his personal life.

Sometimes.

Often.

All right, all the damn time.

McCoy would never love another woman as much as he loved Christy Chapel, of that he was sure. And if the love of his life wanted a divorce, then she could have one. He’d do anything for her.

But Christy wasn’t supposed to fall in love with anybody else. She was supposed to love _him_. Deep in his stubborn heart McCoy refused to believe that Christy truly loved Jim Kirk. He was handsome, he supposed, in a blond sort of way, and he certainly seemed able to fuss over Christy in a way that McCoy never had. And he was promising her the moon, probably literally.

But McCoy had missed his chance. She had been standing there, begging him to step up and tell her how he felt, and he had bottled it.

McCoy sighed, and took the first of what he was sure was going to be many drinks.


	8. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 2197 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

At the San Francisco County Jail, hundreds of journalists and their camera teams were pushing and shoving each other out of the way to get a good spot to film the execution of Christopher Pike. The noise was incredible; the old building simply wasn’t designed to hold so many people, all pushed as close to the forbidding electric chair as they could get. Journalists including Uhura, Sulu, Scotty and Spock all set up along the balconies, elbowing people out of the way to reserve a choice position. Anybody assuming that a Vulcan would be more polite than his human counterparts was destined to be mistaken; after all, logic demanded that an optimal position would produce more factually accurate reporting.

Nero appeared, looking suitable grave in a thousand credit suit. It took him three attempts to be heard over the arguments for power sources – the jail simply wasn’t built to cope with the demand for so many cameras and microphones.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Nero began, leaning against the electric chair in a pose that he knew would guarantee him front page on the next day’s news reports. “Welcome to the first execution ever opened to our free and uncensored press. You would never see this on Romulus, let me tell you!”

A large part of the crowd who had a much better idea about what went on in the Imperial regime, made derisive snorts. Nero carried on regardless.

“The state of California will be second to none when it comes to the protection of the intergalactic rights of all peoples, human or otherwise.”

“Especially if they’re child murderers,” muttered Sulu to Scott.

“All I ask of you ladies and gentlemen and non gendered beings of the media, is that you be tasteful,” Nero concluded, seconds before Pike appeared, being lead by Warden Ayel and a team of guards.

The room erupted into pandemonium. Just as he took a step into the room, Pike’s lawyer rushed forward, breaking past the prison guards. She threw himself into his arms and those journalists closest to them reported later that they shared a passionate kiss and promises of eternal love before Number One was removed, on Pike’s request.

Pike was clearly not ready for the mass of people bellowing at him, snapping photographs and filming his stumbling steps down to the waiting electric chair. He managed to confirm that his last meal had been chicken, he had no final thoughts and that yes, he would do it again.  
He was helped into the electric chair and was silent as the attendants buckled him in. Nero and the warden disappeared into a small room that contained three switches. Two of them were dummies, and one carried the electricity that would kill Pike. Nero wished devoutly that his was the kill switch.

The room fell silent as the rubber hood was placed over Pike’s face. Still cameras clicked and flashed, video cameras rolled, but there was no sound from the amassed journalists.  
Outside the jail, Kirk’s luxurious groundcar was stuck in traffic. Christy stared out of the window, a pensive look on her face. Kirk was nuzzling her neck, muttering about how he couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Christy barely heard him.

In the jail, the countdown to the execution was halted at the last section by a sound guy shouting that his power feed was out. Pike’s hands visibly clenched and unclenched as the sound guy plugged his power cord into a dangerously overloaded socket. Twentieth-century power outlets were not designed for twenty-third century power demands.

“Ok, you can go!” the sound guy called cheerfully.

“Three, two, one,” Nero said, annoyed at the delay, and he and the two others hit the switches.

The prison was plunged into darkness.

Outside, the large group of protestors looked up in confusion as every light in the prison building went off. Inside, all the journalists began screaming and shouting. In the groundcar, Christy screamed for it to stop. The immaculately trained chauffeur hit the brakes, and Kirk tumbled onto the floor in a painful heap of limbs.

“Don’t panic!” yelled Nero, fumbling for an emergency light source. “Don’t panic everyone! The perpetrator is well strapped down!”

He made his way over to the electric chair, to prove that Pike was still secure.

The chair was empty.

“Let’s get to a comm unit,” Sulu told his camera guy urgently. “Pike’s escaped!”

The news spread like wildfire in the enclosed space, and despite pleas for calm from Ayel and Nero, the journalists stampeded for the exits, all dying to be the first to report the dramatic escape of convicted murderer Christopher Pike.

On the other side of the prison, shielded from security cameras by the darkness, Christopher Pike let himself drop down from the high wall onto the grass verge surrounding the building. He landed awkwardly, damaging his ankle, but determination to live got him on his feet and running blindly into the darkness. His path took him a few metres away from the traffic jam, where Christy, who had been scouring the scene intently, recognised him as he ran past.

“It’s Pike!” she shouted, fumbling for the car door.

“What?” asked a bemused Jim. “Christy, we’ve got a train to catch! It’s the last one! I got the last two tickets!”

“I’ll meet you at the station!” Christy called back over her shoulder as she ran after Pike.

Jim stared at her open-mouthed, then sighed and gave the order to his driver to continue onwards. Without realising what he was doing, he opened a comm line to Janice Rand, and started to complain about Christy’s behaviour. Janice was wonderfully understanding.  
Christy chased Pike through the small park that was adjacent to the prison. Despite her hissing that that she was Christy Chapel, and he was safe, Pike was too far gone in his panic to listen to her. Picking up speed, Christy threw herself forwards through the air to catch Pike in a flying tackle. They hit the floor and rolled together until Christy pinned him under her.

“Where are you going?” Christy hissed, as sirens from police cars sounded around them.

“I don’t know,” Pike moaned. “I don’t even know if I want to escape.”

“Oh yes you do,” Christy said urgently. “Yes you do!”

She pulled Pike into the dark undergrowth and pointed out the City Press Room windows in the building next to them.

“See the terrace on the second floor? Get there!” she ordered him.

“How?” he asked, puzzled. She stared at him, open-mouthed.

“You just escaped from the electric chair, and you’re asking _me_?” she hissed. “Go!”

Pike scrambled away into the darkness and Christy hurriedly tried to make herself look presentable as she sauntered nonchalantly into the building. She nodded to the security guard who was familiar with the late night comings and goings of the journalists that used the building.

She moved across the lobby at a determinedly casual pace, until she was out of the guard’s eyeline. Then she ran up the stairs and threw herself into the empty press room, yanking open the windows and pulling an exhausted Pike to safety.

She dumped him unceremoniously against an ancient photocopier, a relic of times past that nobody had ever got round to throwing away. It was still functional, and one of the newspaper reporters, a woman called Marla McGivers, had adopted it as her own. She still used pen and ink, and used the copier daily. She was bizarrely protective of it, but as journalistic quirks went, it was a relatively harmless one and the rest of the people that used the room tolerated it.

Christy picked up a comm unit and got through to McCoy’s office.

“McCoy? It’s Christy. I’m on the case!” she announced proudly. “Listen, shut up, I’ve got Christopher Pike in the City Press Room. He escaped from the chair.”

“What?” spluttered McCoy, pulling himself off the couch where he had collapsed, heartbroken. “Escaped? How? Never mind, never mind, I’ll be right there!”

McCoy ran down the stairs from his office and gathered speed through the bullpen.

“Come on!” he ordered Chekov and a spare camera team, who obediently followed him at a run.

“McCoy! We’re losing the feed on satellite eleven!” yelled a technical assistant.

Outside the building Chekov and the camera team piled into a news van while McCoy took a few vicious kicks at the recalcitrant satellite. They swung it around and opened a door for McCoy to jump in, all the time yelling “Go! Go!”

The rest of the excited team thought that they were after a story. McCoy knew that he was going after far more than that.

 

In the City Press Room, Christy was giving Pike cup after cup of water.

“It was a miracle,” he gasped between swigs. “All the camera equipment blew the circuits.”

“How did you get away?” Christy demanded.

Pike pulled the strip of plastic from her stylus from his sleeve with shaking fingers.

“My pen? Houdini’s birthday? From the chair?” Christy asked, smiling through tears of relief.  
Before Pike could answer, the droning noise of a police tracking shuttle sounded ominously near the windows.

“Shit,” Christy cursed, ducking below window height. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“I’m so tired,” gasped Pike, but Christy hauled him to his feet. The droning noise stopped them trying for the windows again, and when Christy tried the hallway, she was horrified to discover a stampede of raging journalists bearing down at them at speed.

“We’ve got to hide you,” she said desperately. She scanned the room, but it was annoying deficient in placed big enough to hide a man, albeit one who had shrunk to half his usual weight with stress and a prison diet. Her gaze fell on the photocopier. It was one of the really old ones, with a storage cavity inside it. They had snuck a stripper in there once for McGivers’ thirtieth birthday, and he had been only a little shorter than Pike.

“In you go,” she said firmly, tugging him across the room. Pike started to protest, but the noise of the impending crowd was enough to get him inside the machine and the doors shut. Christy had just enough time to throw herself into her chair before the doors flew open, the lights went on and a seemingly unending stream of bodies rushed into the room.

“Pike escaped!” Sulu yelled down a comm link to his boss. “Took out two guards!”

“Took out three guards!” Scotty babbled excitedly to his superiors.

“He must know karate as well as magic!” Gaila trilled.

“He had a phaser, a big one,” Scotty fabricated.

“It was fantastic! Blood everywhere!” Sulu continued.

“Two accomplices forced their way into the room!” yelled another reporter.

“Of course I saw it, dipshit! There were four of them!” said Uhura scornfully into her comm link.

Christy stared around in disbelief at her fellow media professionals. They were certainly living up to the old axiom about not letting the truth get in the way of a good story.

“Marla, do you mind if I use your spare PADD?” she asked. “I left mine in the car with...oh my God, Jim!” She threw the spare PADD on the desk and picked up the comm link. “What’s the number for the train station?” she demanded.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Marla walk towards the photocopier and start feeding pages into the paper loader. Christy slammed down the comm unit, the number still unknown.

“Let me help you with that,” she stammered. “Do you have to do that now?”

“I must copy,” McGivers said simply.

“Erm, well, what about the circuits?” Christy said desperately. “You don’t want to happen here what happened at the jail.”

“These circuits won’t blow,” McGivers said dismissively.

Christy could find nothing to say, and could only back off and look worriedly at McGivers as she started the copying process.

At the train station, Kirk was waiting impatiently on the platform as the tannoy announced the imminent departure of the last train to New York. He paused in his pacing to admire his hair in the reflective surface of the side of the train. He was busy trying to decide whether the collar of his coat should be flat or raised when a shimmer of light behind him coalesced into a familiar human form.

“Janice?” he asked, turning around and completely confused. “How did you get here?”

“Decker Industrial was working on the new beaming technology when they folded,” his efficient assistant replied. “With the takeover completed, I thought that maybe you and the future Mrs Kirk would be able to use these portable beaming devices in order to make the wedding tomorrow.”

Jim was quick enough to notice the slight grimace on Janice’s pretty face when she mentioned Christy’s name, although it had disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

“Thank you,” he said gratefully. “You’re always thinking of me, Janice.”

“I’d do anything for you, Mr Kirk,” she replied quietly.

It was right then that Jim Kirk, probably for the first time in his life, realised just how big an idiot he was.


	9. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 2808 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

McGivers frowned as the copying machine started to make a whimpering noise.

“What was that?” she demanded, opening the doors to reveal the inner workings of the machine.

Christy leapt forwards before the doors could be opened all the way.

“I’ll sort it!” she yelled. She thrust a hand into the small gap of the open doors, felt around for Pike and gave his arm a good yank. It freed the sleeve of his prison uniform from the machinery, and the photocopier rumbled its way back to life.

“How do you know how to fix photocopiers?” McGivers asked suspiciously.

“Mother taught me,” Christy said solemnly. McGivers stared at her for a second, then shrugged and went on with her photocopying.

A sound suspiciously like a yelp came from the whirring machine.

“Your mother my ass,” McGivers said accusingly, but before she could throw open the copier doors Nero burst into the room followed by a squad of heavily armed guards.

“Listen up!” he yelled, grabbing the attention of everyone in the room. “Boys and girls, I have got exclusives for each and every one of you!” he crowed jubilantly.

“We know all about your bullshit exclusives, Roy,” Uhura said dismissively.

“I do not think you understand the meaning of ‘exclusive’,” Spock chimed in. “Unless you are in possession of approximately seventy-six different newsworthy stories.”

Nero stared at him in anger. Spock raised one eyebrow, but didn’t flinch.

“You thought if you could get Pike in the electric chair on television, you’d end up in the Governor’s chair, right?” goaded Scotty.

“And now you’re killed by your own ambition,” Sulu finished.

“A laughing stock,” added Gaila.

“I happen to know where the prisoner is – exactly and precisely,” Nero said with glee.  
“Where?” demanded the room _en masse_.

“Get this,” Nero demanded, and all over the room cameras and audio recording devices sprung into action. “The craven thug was seen running, like a rotten spineless coward. He shot several times at our brave police...”

“I _knew_ he had a phaser!” Scotty said triumphantly.

“Where _is_ he?” demanded Uhura.

“Then he was seen climbing onto this very terrace!” Nero finished, banging his hand for emphasis on the photocopier. Christy swallowed heavily as one of the doors popped open.

“Here?” demanded the room.

“Not here,” Nero said, making his way to the door. “But one flight up!”

Christy sighed with relief as the room emptied, journalists scrambling over each other to search the upper floor.

The doors of the photocopier opened and Pike stuck his head out.

“I want to go back to jail,” he said weakly.

“No, no, no,” Christy hushed him. “We’ll get you out. You’ll be fine.”

“Christy? Do you know where he is?”

The doors banged open and Pike’s lawyer ran into the room. She saw Pike’s head and shrieked, pushing Christy out the way so she could haul him upright and kiss him senseless.

“You’re safe, you’re safe,” she breathed. “I thought I’d never see you again! Are you hurt?”

“I’m ok,” Pike reassured her. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt!” wailed the lawyer, clutching him to her again. “Why would I be hurt?”

Christy watched the pair with an indulgent grin on her face. It wasn’t often that you saw a scene like this in her job, and she intended to make the most of it.

“We’ve got to get him out of here!” Christy told the lawyer urgently.

“To my apartment?” she offered.

Christy shook her head. “Are you crazy? That’s the first place they’ll look,” she replied. “The lobby’s probably swarming with police.”

Noise from the hallway alerted Christy.

“Uh-oh, It’s Nero. Get him in,” she ordered.

“I don’t want to go back in there!” Pike protested.

“Get him in!” Christy yelled, and between them the two women stuffed a protesting Pike back into the photocopier.

Moments later, the doors opened to let a dispirited crowd of journalists and a blustering  
Nero back into the room.

“Waste of time,” one journalist grumbled.

“Wild goose chase,” added another.

“We have eye witness reports!” protested Nero. “And I am going to personally guarantee that we’re going to take him if we have to search the entire area!”

Nero marched out of the room, followed by an unwilling Sulu who had been assigned by his station to cover Nero’s every move in the days running up to the election.

“Hey, look who showed up! What are you doing here?” asked Scotty, who had noticed Number One standing nervously at the side of the room. “Do you know where he is?”

“How should I know?” she bit back.

“Why are you here then?” Gaila challenged.

“To make sure you all tell the truth,” the lawyer snapped, picking up a PADD and reading it. “This is all wrong! There were no phasers! No guerrillas! You’re making him out to be a monster!”

From upstairs phaser blasts could be heard as Nero systematically decimated every locked door in the building in his hunt for Pike.

“Oh you see, he hasn’t got a chance!” said Number One desperately as McGivers started to fiddle with the copier again. “If you don’t kill him, Nero will.”

Christy sucked in a breath as she saw the doors to the copier pop open. The lawyer also saw them and her eyes flared in alarm.

“You didn’t see the gentle side of him!” she shouted, trying to distract McGivers away from the machine. “The man that likes to read, and has the softest hands.

The world’s worst-timed sneeze rang out from the photocopier. As heads turned to look in puzzlement, Number One grabbed the nearest PADD and slammed it down onto a desk.

“No!” she shrieked. “I won’t let you do this!”

She edged towards one of the internal windows that looked down onto the lobby below.

“He’s paid enough of a price!” she called as she stepped up onto the ledge. “I won’t let you punish him anymore, even if it means having to give up my own life!”

With a scream, the lawyer threw herself out of the window. Her fall was broken several times by canopies that she crashed into, before she landed with a sickening thump on the desk of the surprised security guard below.

As the entire room rushed to the windows, Christy dived towards the photocopier, slamming the doors shut.

“What did she do that for?” asked one bemused journalist.

“Is she dead?” asked another.

Christy fought her way to the front, and saw Number One smile as a paramedic started to run a diagnostic tool over her. Christy swallowed hard. That had taken real bravery, and showed real love.

With a sickening jolt, she realised that there was only one man that she would ever do something that stupid for, and it wasn’t the man she was supposed to marry tomorrow morning.  
She was elbowed out the way by a crowd of people desperately trying to break this new story first, and it was in the middle of a crowd or reporters shouting about death-defying leaps and buckets of blood that McCoy and his team arrived.

Christy moved towards him, but couldn’t say anything aloud for fear of discovery. McCoy arched his eloquent eyebrows at her, demanding to know where Pike was. He looked around the room expectantly. Christy leaned against the photocopier, nodding towards it.

McCoy looked puzzled. Christy pointed discreetly at the machine. McCoy made a ‘you’re talking nonsense gesture’ and turned away. Christy stalked after him, got his attention, walked back to the photocopier and made a series of pointing gestures with an incredibly exasperated look on her face.

McCoy blinked in surprise, and then nodded his understanding.

“Gaila!” he yelled.

Gaila looked up in surprise; she hadn’t noticed her boss arrive in the crowded room.

“Why aren’t you down there interviewing her?” he demanded. “Don’t you want an exclusive?”

“Get down there guys!” she screamed, grabbing her camera operator and heading for the door. Predictably, the rest of the room followed her.

“Chekov, guard the door!” McCoy commanded. Together he and Christy hauled a sobbing Pike from the machine.

“She’s going to be alright, Pike,” McCoy told him. “She was conscious and talking to paramedics when I got here.”

“We have to get him out of here,” Christy told McCoy urgently.

“We can’t! The lobby is swarming with cops. We’ll get set up here.”

Around him, his best journalist and his best technical crew got busy, ready to tell the world the true story of Pike’s escape from prison. Down in the lobby below, reporters from rival stations got busy telling their own versions of the truth.

“And then?” asked Christy gently.

“And then there was a big buzz, and the lights went out.”

“Ask him how he got out!” hissed McCoy, who was pacing in the back of the shot.

“I am doing it,” Christy ground out. “So, Christopher, there you were, it was dark, you were buckled in...”

“Don’t set the scene! Ask him the questions!” interrupted McCoy.

“Do you want to do this?” asked Christy irritably, thrusting the universal translator towards McCoy.

“I haven’t got any make up on!”

“Trust me, it wouldn’t help,” she snapped.

“Please don’t fight!” pleaded Pike. He took the universal translator from McCoy’s unresisting hand and started to recount how he had slipped his wrist, now thinner than usual, out from the restraints, and then how he had used the plastic strip from the stylus to open the buckles.

“McCoy!” Chekov interrupted.

“Not now!” McCoy hissed.

“Someone’s coming!” Chekov said urgently.

“Get him back in the box,” ordered McCoy. He and Christy each grabbed an arm. “I’ll take him back to the office.”

“Nero will kill him if they find him in the copier!” Christy protested.

“Nero will kill him if they find him _anywhere_ ,” McCoy pointed out.

Acknowledging his point, Christy muscled Pike back into the photocopier.

The doors banged open to allow a stream of journalists back in, all disappointed with Number One’s refusal to give any interviews.

“Can we get rid of some of these tv people out of here?” McGivers yelled as she tripped over one of the camera cases that had been scattered around the room. “This is supposed to be a print media room.”

Paper in hand she headed for the copier, but McCoy stepped in front of her, staring reverently at the machine.

“I love this machine,” he announced. “I’d like to buy it.”

“Right now?” asked McGivers, nonplussed.

“Right now. This is a piece of mechanical history, and it deserves to be preserved, right, Christy?”

“Oh yes,” she agreed. “It should go into the museum exhibit SNN is sponsoring.” She pulled McGivers to one side, allowing Chekov and the camera team to start unplugging it and rolling it towards the doors. “And you know when McCoy wants something, there’s no stopping him.”

“I’ll give you twenty thousand for it, cash,” McCoy said, rummaging in his pockets.

“Twenty thousand? But it’s three hundred years old!” McGivers protested.

“You’re right, it does have antique value. Twenty-two thousand!” McCoy threw away the IOU he had been scribbling, and started writing another.

“I thought you said cash,” McGivers said as McCoy thrust a note into her hand.

“Cash, IOU, same thing,” he assured her.

“I’m not authorised to sell it! It belongs to...well, I don’t know who it belongs to, but I’m attached to it!” McGivers protested, grabbing onto the edge of the machine.

The doors banged open again, revealing an annoyed Jim Kirk. He strode into the room, only for Christy to bang straight into him as she pulled the photocopier backwards towards the exit.

“Jim!” she gasped, remembering his existence suddenly.

“Christy, you missed the train,” he said shortly. “And there isn’t another shuttle flight until three o’clock in the morning.”

“But there’s been a new development,” Christy stammered.

“Hi, Jim!” McCoy said cheerfully.

Kirk’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ve had it with you, McCoy,” he hissed.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t feel that way about you,” McCoy said cheerfully.

“What are you doing?” Kirk demanded of Christy.

“McCoy just bought a copier,” Christy told him truthfully.

“This thing?” Kirk turned his nose up. “It has to be two hundred years old.” He kicked the side of it, and both Christy and McCoy rushed to keep the doors shut.

“It’s three hundred years old, I’m not authorised to sell it, and who the hell are you?” McGivers demanded, glaring at Jim for kicking her baby.

“Haven’t you got something to do?” demanded McCoy.

“You’re damned right,” snarled Jim. “I’ve got to get my fiancée on a three am flight now, because I’ve missed the eleven o’clock train!”

“Aw, don’t blame yourself,” McCoy said sympathetically, giving Jim a pat on the shoulder.

“I don’t blame myself, I blame you!” Jim yelled. “Come on, honey, let’s go,” he said to Christy, calming his tone.

“I can’t...um, I mean that...I...well...” Christy turned to McCoy for help.

“She means, she’s right in the middle of a fast-breaking news story,” McCoy informed him.

“ _What?_ No. See, my wife isn’t in the news business. She hates it. In fact, she feels oppressed by it. You can just ask her. Right?”

He looked triumphantly at Christy. “Right?”

Christy looked confused, and was struggling for the right words. Truth be told, when she had met Jim she had felt exactly that. But the events of the last eight hours and changed and revitalised her. She was buzzing on excitement and adrenaline, and she loved it.

“Well?” asked McCoy knowingly.

Jim took Christy to one side.

“Christy, Christy, I want to take you home, honey. I want to give you a talk show, treat you like a woman, treat you like you’re supposed to be treated, hmm?”

He held out a hand to her.

“Come on,” he snapped.

“Hard to turn that one down,” McCoy murmured in Christy’s ear. He had come up behind her and put his chin on her shoulder.

Jim lost his temper, and stamped his expensively-shod foot on the ground.

“My apartment overlooks the goddamn Federation Council buildings!” He sounded for all the world like a toddler having a tantrum. “I want you to come with me right now!”

“What?” demanded Christy, not liking this side of Jim at all.

“Come with me now, or you’re not coming at all!” Jim demanded.

McCoy switched shoulders and told Jim, “That’s right, treat her rough, she likes that.”

“I’m sorry, Christy, you know I’m not usually like this, but I’ve got to put my foot down now. Really.”

“Darling,” Christy began.

“That’s you,” McCoy added helpfully, chin still resting on Christy’s shoulder.

“Jim,” Christy pleaded. “Jim, true love is based on mutual trust. I’m just asking you to trust me for five minutes.”

Jim looked unconvinced.

“It’s also based on plenty of sex,” she assured him.

Jim sighed, and looked at his watch, which was one of a limited edition, with only nine other copies in existence.

“Five minutes,” he ground out.

Christy and McCoy turned to the machine, which was middle ground in a bickering match between the SNN camera team and Chekov, versus McGivers. She had hold of the power cord and was being dragged across the floor.

“I’m not authorised to sell it!” she protested.

“How would you like to work for me?” McCoy demanded. “Start tonight, making twice what you’re making now.”

“Twice? What would I do?” asked McGivers, loosening her hold on the power cord.

“Movie critic,” said McCoy firmly.

“I haven’t seen a movie in years,” McGivers protested.

“They haven’t changed,” Christy said urgently. “If you like something, give it ten stars. If you don’t, give it five. Five!” she looked at her watch and then back at McCoy.

“Well, I don’t know,” said McGivers slowly. “Fifteen years in the print media...”

“Do you know what it’s like to work for this man?” Christy demanded as McCoy started prying McGivers’ fingers away from the power cord. “Long, luxurious lunches, time to formulate thoughtful opinions...”

“Millions of people doing whatever you ask,” McCoy added.

“And they don’t even have to read!” Christy finished.

McCoy managed to get the cord away from McGivers, and he handed it off to Christy who immediately started pushing the photocopier towards the door.

“I want you to see a movie tonight! You’re on the air tomorrow!” McCoy called as he followed Christy towards the exit.

“Yes sir!” shouted an excited McGivers, who started to clear her desk immediately.

Between them, the camera team and Chekov, they got the photocopier out of the room and down the hall.

Back in the press room, Sulu, Scott and Spock looked at each other oddly, each processing the strange events of the night.

“He’s in the copier!” they shouted simultaneously, and took off after the SNN team, followed by the rest of the room.


	10. Switching Channels

**Title:** Switching Channels  
 **Author:** [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
 **Movie Adapted:** [Switching Channels](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096203)  
 **Fandom:** Reboot  
 **Genre:** Het  
 **Characters/Pairings:** McCoy/Chapel, Chapel/Kirk, other het pairings  
 **Rating:** R for some swear words, but nothing major.  
 **Word Count:** 2536 of 27518 in total  
 **Disclaimer:** No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

 **Notes** Written for the [](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/profile)[**reel_startrek**](http://reel-startrek.livejournal.com/) challenge.

There's a hell of a lot of handwaving here! Anything that doesn't make sense - like the Governor of California living in San Francisco - please just take it as an AU and don't worry too much about it. Any references to Pratchett and Doctor Who are completely intentional.

“Come on ladies, what’s your problem?” asked McCoy, exasperated.

The rest of the team looked at the two flights of marble stairs in disbelief.

“You have got to be kidding,” said Chekov flatly.

“All right, come on, the elevator, let’s go!” Christy said, the sound of phaser fire from the floor above shocking them into movement.

Christy slapped the button for the doors, only for them to roll back to reveal Nero and his group of armed guards, who were looking increasingly annoyed at not shooting anything other than doors all evening.

“Oh shit,” breathed Christy.

“McCoy?” asked Nero.

“Oh, you go ahead, Roy, we’ll take the next one,” McCoy said generously.

“Where are you taking this machine?” Nero asked suspiciously.

“To get it fixed,” Christy said quickly.

“In the middle of Christopher Pike’s escape?”

The rest of the press pack had caught up with them as the camera team pushed the copier into the elevator.

“You’ve been trying to get that machine out of the room for twenty minutes,” accused Scotty. “Are you hiding something?”

“Like a recently escaped criminal?” added Sulu.

“That’s it!” cried Nero. “That’s it! He’s got Christopher Pike in there! OK men, get ready to fire.”

The camera men scrambled to get out of the way of the phasers that were being pointed at the machine.

“No!” shouted McCoy, diving for the doors of the elevator. “You’ve got to go through me!”

“Me too!” yelled Christy, joining him.

“Her too,” McCoy added.

“Roll them!” ordered the journalists.

“Rolling!” affirmed the camera men.

Not for the first time that day, Christy was amazed by the callousness of her profession.

“On the count of three!” Nero called. “One!”

“He won’t do it!” McCoy assured Christy.

“Two!”

McCoy and Christy rested their heads together and brushed their lips in a final goodbye.

“And...” Nero began, before one of his more media-savvy assistants urgently warned him about the backlash he would face after ordering the murder of two news professionals live on air.

Nero sighed, and ordered for the guards to get McCoy and Chapel out of the way. As soon as they had been pulled to one side, Nero yelled “One, two three!” and the guards opened fire on the ancient photocopier.

Christy started to cry. McCoy stared at Nero, fixing him with his patented glare.

“That was very brave, Roy,” he said sardonically.

“This is the outcome when those amongst us would defy law and order,” Nero said proudly, stepping into the lift to flick open then damaged doors. Camera clicked and whirred for a second, before Spock said calmly,

“There is nobody in the machine.”

“Huh?” said McCoy, and he and Christy peered around the side of the elevator to look at what was indeed an empty photocopier. Christy glanced upwards, and smiled in relief to see Pike disappearing through a panel in the ceiling. He mouthed “I’m ok” to her, then replaced the panel.

“Congratulations Roy, you just killed a copy machine!” McCoy said, laughing as he placed an arm around Nero’s shoulders.

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You can still make the tail end of the news!” Nero pleaded at the reporters all moving away in disgust. “He’s got to be here somewhere!”

Only McGivers remained, staring at the remnants of her beloved machine in shock. McCoy sauntered over to her, and removed the IOU from her top pocket. He ripped it up.

“I don’t want it now,” he informed her. “It’s got holes in it.”

Sighing heavily, McGivers went back to the press room to unpack her things and get used to life without her beloved copy machine.

“McCoy!” Nero was back, and he was angry. “It’s an offence in this state to aid and abet the escape of a convicted prisoner. You’re going to jail, and so is that...that... _female_.”

The other elevator opening prevented McCoy from replying. Warden Ayel rushed out, gasping for breath.

“I just saw the eleven o’clock news!” he squeaked. “The governor didn’t go on tv! There’s no pardon!”

Christy nodded quickly at her camera tech, who set his equipment down on a table, pointed it in the right direction and pressed the ‘on’ button, before disappearing at Christy’s whispered order.

“What do you mean?” Nero demanded.

“The governor didn’t pardon Pike!” Ayel repeated.

McCoy noticed Christy gesturing towards the camera, and nodded his understanding.

“How does he know there’s no pardon unless he was _expecting_ one?” McCoy asked Nero.

“No, he said, ‘I beg your pardon’! This is the politest warden you’ll ever meet,” Nero said desperately.

“So you knew the Governor was going to pardon Pike? That’s why you moved up the execution!” Christy cried, trying to explain the situation for the tape.

“Warden Ayel moved it up, because he was concerned about bomb threats and riots,” Nero said through clenched teeth.

“Oh, we’re laying it all on him now?” asked McCoy, picking up the baton admirably. “Tell me Ayel, how does it feel to be a patsy?”

“I can see it now,” Christy joined in. “Warden Ayel charged with obstruction of justice!”

“Distinguished warden accused of murder!” McCoy said gleefully.

Ayel began to wheeze in earnest.

“We’d better lay him down,” said Christy, checking the camera position. “Here?”

“No, here,” McCoy said, dragging him to the left slightly.

“You knew about the pardon,” Christy accused the man gasping for breath.

“You lied about the riots,” added McCoy.

“And the bomb threats!”

“You’re going to go to prison for what this man did!” McCoy yelled, grabbing Ayel by the collar and shaking him.

“Life imprisonment surrounded by your own inmates!” Christy concluded triumphantly.

Ayel flushed an even more worrying purple colour, and tried to speak.

“Don’t speak, just nod your head,” Christy ordered. “You knew about the pardon!”

Ayel nodded.

“Ha!”

Grinning with pleasure, Christy and McCoy let Ayel fall to the ground in a wheezing heap.

“Got you!” Christy told Nero with great pleasure.

“You have got nothing,” Nero told them. “Even if this man lives,” he paused to give Ayel a kick, “Who cares? It’s your word against mine. “

“You are amazing,” McCoy said in disbelief. “Isn’t he amazing, Christy?”

“Amazing,” she agreed.

“You’ll be the best governor since Machiavelli,” McCoy told him.

“Or Vetinari,” she added.

“Or him,” McCoy nodded. “Why do you think all the best ones have Italian names?”

Christy shrugged.

“That’s the guy from New Jersey?” preened Nero. McCoy nodded solemnly.

“I mean, the way you make him do everything you want him to do. Everything!”

Ayel’s wheezing grew louder.

“Of course I did,” boasted Nero, falling right into McCoy’s verbal trap. “I worked very hard to get Pike electrocuted. I’m not going to let some weakling governor keep me out of the mansion.”

By now Ayel had crawled over to Nero and was trying to tell him about the camera he had just noticed from his prone position on the floor.

“What do you _want_?” Nero asked angrily. “I’ll bust you down to dog warden for this!”

Christy and McCoy watched on in pleasure as Nero failed to listen to his underling warn him that he was being taped. Christy gave her hand to McCoy to shake; just as he had on the first day they had met, he turned her hand over and dropped a kiss on her knuckles.

“Nero!” bellowed Governor Mudd, rounding the corner of the corridor with the rest of the press pack on his heels. “What asshole has been shooting the locks off all the doors?”

“Governor!” shouted Christy, jumping into the fray. “Have you pardoned Christopher Pike?”

“I have,” said the Governor proudly.

“Then I think it’s about time the two of you met,” Christy replied. She made her way to the elevator and called up, “It’s alright, Chris! You can come down, you’re a free man!”

“Why, here’s the persecuted man himself!” cried Mudd, coming forward to shake Pike’s hand after he dropped down from the ceiling of the elevator. “Thank God you’re alive, Mr Pike!”

“That man needs help!” said Pike, noticing Ayel who had finally passed out. He dropped to the floor and started to perform chest compressions on the unconscious man.

“Incredible!” shouted Scotty. “Saving the life of the man that was going to fry him!”

“Is Number One ok?” asked Pike urgently.

“She’s fine, Christopher,” soothed Christy, after a quick glance at Spock had revealed the Vulcan nodding. “The only one in trouble here is Nero. He’s confessed to bribery, attempted murder and about fourteen other charges!”

“What we have here is the case of a Federation Council Attorney’s word against that of a reporter,” sniffed Nero.

“Actually, it’s your word against that of an award-winning investigative reporter and a digital recording, which I want in the air in fifteen minutes!” McCoy waved the tape in front of Nero, then threw it to the camera team, who raced off to see it transmitted to the station.

“See you in jail, Roy,” McCoy told him.

“Don’t call me Roy!” bellowed Nero. “And you’re an accessory, so you’ll be in jail right along with me! And her!”

“The hell they are!” shouted Mudd, who could see a good thing when it was thrust in front of his eyes. “He’s pardoned, and she’s pardoned, and you’re not.”

The crowd burst out laughing at Nero’s indignant face.

“How can I ever thank you two?” Mudd gushed as he pumped McCoy’s hand.

“Oh, we were just doing our job. You’re not much, Governor, but you’re all we’ve got,” McCoy told him. Mudd smiled, despite the insult, as the combined cameras of San Francisco’s press were trained on him.

McCoy took Christy by the hand and led her away from the noise and bustle of the press pack.

“Chekov!” McCoy yelled. “You want this story?”

“Yes!” replied Chekov, not believing his ears.

“You’ve got it! Enjoy!”

McCoy and Christy laughed as Chekov whooped with delight and plunged into the crowd of people. They continued hand in hand into the empty press room, where McCoy gathered her into his arms. They stared blissfully at each other for a long moment, before their moment of reconciliation was well and truly ruined.

“Hello,” said Jim frostily. Behind him, frantically jabbing her fingers at a PADD, was an immaculately dressed blonde woman, a little smaller than Christy. She knew who the other woman was immediately, and smiled.

“Jim, I’ve got something to tell you,” Christy said, tugging at her engagement ring.

“Christy, it’s ok, there’s something I’ve got to tell _you_ ,” Jim interrupted her. “It’s pretty important. Could you excuse us please?” he asked McCoy and the blonde woman.

“I’ll get the baggage transported to the car,” she said in pleasant, low tones and nodded at Christy before she left the room. Christy couldn’t help noticing Jim’s eyes falling on the woman’s behind as she wiggled her way out of the room and sighed.

“Don’t mind me,” McCoy said, wandering over to investigate a large basket of expensive food that had been part of Jim’s plans for the train ride.

“I’ve been thinking, and what we have here is apples and oranges,” Jim sighed. “In fact, _major_ apples and oranges. Honey, I just don’t think this is going to work out.”

“You don’t?” asked Christy, trying to keep a straight face, trying to ignore McCoy opening a box of chocolates and start picking through the soft centres.

“Do you need to sit down?” Jim asked solicitously.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, narrowing her eyes at McCoy who had abandoned the chocolates in favour of imported nuts from Andoria.

“See, you don’t hate the news. You don’t feel oppressed by it. You love it! And you’ll be a lot happier here with him than coming to New York with me. Do you mind telling me why?”

“Er...,” Christy began. “Because here I make a difference,” she said eventually.

Kirk nodded.

“Sorry I had to hurt you, Christy,” he said as he headed for the door, “but one day you’ll understand.”

In the background, McCoy popped open a bottle of champagne.

“I’m really quite a complicated person, you know,” Kirk ended, before heading out of the door. Through the glass, Christy could see him tuck Janice Rand’s hand under his arm and they made their way down the corridor together.

Christy wished them luck. Especially Janice.

“Hell of a nice guy,” mused McCoy, pouring the champagne into two glasses. “Wish I’d got to know him better.”

“McCoy,” scolded Christy, accepting a glass and a kiss.

“Great taste in champagne though,” McCoy allowed.

“Oh, I’ve still got his ring,” Christy said, looking back at the door and moving towards it, in an attempt to trace her ex-fiancé down.

“No, we’re going to hock it, pay for the honeymoon,” McCoy said, wrestling her back into his arms.

“Oh but we can’t do that...” Christy began, and then smiled. “Honeymoon?”

“Honeymoon,” McCoy confirmed. “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll send the ring back with the gym equipment.”

“Oh, McCoy,” Christy sighed, slipping her arms around his shoulders.

“You’re not going to get all sentimental on me now, are you?” he teased.

“Oh no,” she assured him.

“Say you love me, and all that stuff?”

“Not unless you do,” Christy told him, dipping her finger into something gooey and expensive and feeding it to him.

“I want to go some place nice this time, though,” she warned him after a thorough kiss. “No news.”

“No news,” McCoy agreed.

“Ok, where?”

A week later, a sun’s warm rays were hitting Christy’s skin as she and McCoy lounged on a private beach at the most luxurious hotel she could find on the same little moon they had gone to all those years ago. They had been happy here, and it was symbolic, she decided. McCoy had just demanded that they go somewhere where they could swim naked. And it wasn’t as if that damn volcano would erupt again, was it?

Truth be told, he was an easy man to please, and he had lived up to his side of the deal. There had been no news at all during their first week on honeymoon, and contrary to his firmly held belief, he had not dropped dead.

“Are you happy?” he asked, leaning over to kiss his way up the side of her neck.

“Mmm, blissfully,” she sighed. His hands had just drifted down to play with the ties of her bikini bottoms when an ominous rumble came from the large mountain behind them and an enormous plume of smoke was blasted into the air.

“What?” Christy shrieked, sitting up. She looked at the volcano, and back at her husband, who was trying his best to look innocent.

“You didn’t!” she accused him.

“I’m a powerful man, Christy, but even I don’t control nature!” he protested.

Christy sighed, and looked at the volcano again. A quick glance at McCoy showed he was keeping his mouth shut, although she could see his eye between to twitch.

“One report, ten minutes tops,” she told him once she had tortured him enough, pulling on her sun-dress as she gathered up their belongings.

McCoy grinned, and followed the woman he loved off the beach and on to a story.


End file.
